PLEASE LIKE ME: Season 3
A TV Series Review by Lloyd I Sederer, MD
What made Seinfeld (the TV show, not the comedian) so popular? There was no real plot. It was not an epic or adventure or romance. The setting was great (NYC) but that town (my town) has its friends and foes. The characters were odd, if unique. Their circumstances ordinary. But the writing was brilliant -- especially the dialogue, the humor was incisive but not cruel, the relationships were messy but warm, and life kept moving along. It was observational humor (with its roots in stand-up comedy) and viewers loved it (btw, The Office had some of these screenplay attributes, except the lead actor was not very embraceable, nor a model for humanity, or given to learn from experience).
Imagine an Australian observational comedy, with far more likable (even lovable) characters. And drop them into quotidian events that reveal our limitations, our errors, our illnesses, our pantheon of problems and relationships, and our wonderful resilience and firm attachments to others. Written by and starring Josh Thomas, a Hobbit-like human with shoes, Please Like Me (PLM) basically has Josh and his fellow 20-somethings and their families go about their lives. In doing so, we are revealed our immanent virtues (particularly kindness) and foibles (lots of those). The show does not eschew the painful and awkward, in fact, it makes a beeline for them, but with humor and pathos.
Take one episode well into Season 2. Josh, decides to bring his divorced bipolar mom (played with aplomb by Debra Lawrence) on a several day camping trip after she leaves the psychiatric hospital, where she was admitted after an overdose that almost killed her. Just the two of them. We have already come to know her and her fellow inpatients from episodes where he visits the hospital; we appreciate what it is like to live with and cope with a mental illness - even if you have a loving and supportive family and friends (and too few people are that fortunate). Josh and mum are into the second evening of their trip and cooking dinner over an open fire. He begins speaking to mum about what it is like to be a son whose mother has tried to kill herself, and "...do you want some more chili.?" I can't recall seeing such an important and delicate conversation so keenly drawn and so gently yet deeply delivered. I imagined showing it to families with a loved one who has attempted or considering suicide and then talking about what they saw, feel and think.
The third season of PLM premiers on Oct 16 on PIVOT.tv, a relatively new network from Participant Media "...where what you watch does make a difference". Participant now has a thumping great resumé of over 80 films and original TV shows - including in their film credits An Inconvenient Truth, The Help, Good Night, and Good Luck, The Soloist, Contagion, Teach, Lincoln, The Unknown Known (Rumsfeld), Food, Inc., A Most Violent Year, Syriana, The Prophet, He Named Me Malala, and many other films that combine entertainment with a social theme and cause (Company with a Conscience: Participant Media's Social Action Campaign). PIVOT.tv offers original shows like PLM, with movies and documentaries - many linked to issues that readers can take action on in ways that are real, ubiquitous and hardly faux-liberal. Two upcoming feature, more mainstream films that Participant Media is co-producing are Bridge of Spies (Tom Hanks, directed by Steven Spielberg) and Our Brand is Crisis (Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton).
In the third season, PLM (in the four episodes I screened, each about 25 minutes) unpeels people with depression and bipolar illnesses; neurotics too; gays, lesbians and coming out with family; infidelity, separations and break-ups; chickens; gluten; dads and moms; psychiatric medications; street drugs, including MDMA (ecstasy); workplace sexual harassment; friendship and its vagaries; and of course love. Remarkably, none of the packed material seems cluttered, dense, or pedantic. PLM is more like a soufflé: it is made of wonderful ingredients, flavored with meaning and values, and whipped up to be light, sweet and gratifying. Give it a try.
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The opinions expressed here are solely my own as a psychiatrist and public health advocate, I receive no support from any pharmaceutical or device company.
My book for families who have a member with a mental illness is The Family Guide to Mental Health Care (Foreword by Glenn Close) -- is now available in paperback.
Follow Lloyd I. Sederer, MD on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/askdrlloyd