A Man. And His Blog.

The second season of Showtimes half-hour dramedy aired between March and June 2010.

Tara Gregson (Toni Collette) is a wife and mother of two children. Tara has dissociative identity disorder (DID). Whenever she is stressed, she transforms into one of her alternate personalities: wild and flirty teenager T; old-fashioned housewife Alice; and male, loud, beer-drinking Vietnam vet Buck. A fifth personality, Gimme, is introduced later in the first season. During the second season of the series, two further personalities were introduced. The former, called Shoshana, is Tara’s “therapist” of sorts, while the seventh personality’s name is Chicken, an infantile representation of Tara when she was 5 years old. Tara is supported by her husband Max (John Corbett), teenage daughter Kate (Brie Larson) and gay, but sexually experimenting son Marshall (Keir Gilchrist). Her sister Charmaine (Rosemarie DeWitt) is somewhat promiscuous and not very supportive of Tara, as she often expresses doubts about the validity of her sister’s disorder.

Episode 01: Yes
An interesting season opener, even though I can’t think of any reason, why Tara’s alters wouldn’t show for a few months, but Buck is the first one t break out after the neighbor’s suicide. There were the scenes with the “traumatized” Tara, when she was in the house, but I don’t even know, why Tara should be traumatized about the neighbor’s death, and why she develops that much interest in this case. This story was probably the easiest way for the writers to get Tara back to her old habits, which is alright, but it has a sour aftertaste.
I liked the rest of the episode though. Finally, the kids and Charmaine have good days; Marshall can lead a gay-offensive in high school (though this story seems a bit of a cliché), Kate finds a new job (and she looked way too hot in that “spy agent” dress – this scene was hilarious) and Max seems to have a bit of success in the job.
The introduction of Pammy (Joey Lauren Adams) was interesting, and not just because I like Joey Lauren Smith. Her connection with Buck could bring some own storylines for Tara’s alters, which would be great. And secretly I am hoping for a bit lesbian action between the two, lol. 7.5/10

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Diablo Cody and Steven Spielberg present United States of Tara. A series about the unexpected nature of American families and a wife and mother of two teens who suffers from dissociative identity disorder, which means she suffers from multiple personalities. Tara (Toni Collette) struggles to find a balance between her dissociative identity disorder and raising a dysfunctional family.

Episode 01: Pilot I already posted some words about this one here, just the points are missing. 8/10

Episode 02: Aftermath Great episode. The introduction of Tara’s third and (so far) last personality, Alice, is wonderful written and captured on film. Alice herself is a great character, first very charming and loving, but later a strong housewife from the 50s which is very traditional and not very liked by the kids – especially not by Kate (Brie Larson) (the fight scene in the restroom). But there is still one problem: It is too much of a drama instead of comedy. This show probably would be much greater if it would running a whole hour. 8/10

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Yesterday it was time for a new TV series on Showtime: creator Steven Spielberg and writer Diablo Cody brought a new comedy/drama to the small screen starring Toni Collette and John Corbett. I thought it was time to review another TV show and the first new series.

The pilot episode was pretty good. I got all what I wanted to see: a great plot for a TV show, magnificent acting, for a drama show a bit comedy, for a comedy series a lot of drama. And with ~29 minutes enough time to introduce the setting without putting too much in the pilot episode.
Toni Collette acts as Tara, a loving mother with multiple personalities – a situation that tested her family and will test them furthermore. In this episode we met the normal Tara. She speaks into a camera about her daughter Kate (Brie Larson), a ball of hormones with curious taste in men and the pill-after-sex prescription. After we met Tara, we have a look at “T”, the teenage personality of Tara. T and Kate are best friends and Kate herself said that she likes T the most of her personalities. We are introduced to Max (John Corbett), Tara’s husband and hard working father who will do anything for his family. We see Marshall (Keir Gilchrist), the shy, sensitive, good-natured kid who bakes pancakes and defends the honor of his sister Kate. Last but not least we meet Charmaine, Tara’s sister (Rosemarie DeWitt). She has only one personality, but needs some attention. She doesn’t know what to do with Tara.
Later the episode we will be introduced to Buck, another personality of Tara. Buck is a fan of beer and motorcycles, also he isn’t afraid for a good man-to-man fight. Tara’s fourth personality, Alice – a perfect homemaker who believes in good, traditional values – will be introduced in the next episode.

Toni Collette was impressing with her acting of the three entirely different characters. All the characters are well written as well as the story of the pilot episode. The interesting thing about is that there is no ongoing storyline yet. And maybe there is one coming (Weeds does have an ongoing storyline, too). But it will be clear that there will be a lot of drama – more as we can see in Weeds and Californication. This plot was made for a really good drama/character show. When the actors are really good (I don’t have any doubts) to explore their characters in the whole season, this will be a well made TV show and (hopefully) a new success for Showtime beating up HBO.
Like I said, Toni is great. John Corbett is a great actor, too, when he has a role which calls for his talent (I loved him in Northern Exposure). “Tara” could be a little breakthrough for the young actors, I like their characters (and obviously Marshall is gay). Only Rosemarie DeWitt appears to be more in the background. But let’s see which development her character is expecting.

It is not a 100-point episode, but a half hour full of possible character drama and great actors. And I like that. It is like The L Word without the lesbians, but a disorder and with some male characters in it and shortened to 30 minutes. I am looking forward to the next eleven episodes.