Sadder Man

Just a quickie this time, because this show, whose premiere aired just last night, fits with last the post’s theme so fully that it’s almost as if last week’s post was written in anticipation of this show.  Man trapped in his own prideful choices?  Check.  Apt Greek tragedy comparison?  Probably better here than in the shows I reviewed, although Shakespeare is more explicitly referenced.  Cosmic injustice of a society that expects men to handle problems they’re poorly equipped for?  You bet.  Man who believes he’s entitled to success?  And how. 

Blunt Talk, this week's show, is about an aging entertainer who's a hot mess, and it seems as stereotypically male as those did.  There have been plenty of aging-female-entertainer hot messes on television—Cybill, Kirstie, The Comeback (And I’m sure I’m forgetting many)—but the normative thrust of those stories is mostly that the women have delusions of professional grandeur, and would just be so much happier if they settled down and acted like normal grownup wives and mothers.  In contrast, here, it’s up to the rest of the world to live up to the man’s expectations.  I’m not saying it’s a bad show.  In fact, I like it somewhat better than last post’s Sad Men shows, but I chalk that up to acting quality and absurdity rather than overall concept. 

Blunt Talk (Starz, new.  Half-hour dramedy.)

Watched:  Pilot

Premise:  Alcoholic, selectively-naiive newsman unspools dramatically while hiding his needy sadness and masochism under a veneer of professional bravado.

Promise:  Patrick Stewart plays an alcoholic and otherwise dissolute but well-meaning newsman of the hard-hitting editorial type whose professional and personal lives are falling apart.  He has a codependent relationship with a servant/friend/military colleague and a writing staff who indulge and enable him.  It’s a very human portrayal, in a way—we see how desperately this man wants comfort and safety, but he has no idea how to obtain it, and he tries in all the wrong places.  The show’s humor derives mostly from the extent to which it embraces its own absurdity, shifting the idea of man-boy all the way to man-infant.  In this world, women’s worth is only to provide comfort---to a ridiculous extreme.  (See, e.g., (spoiler) two female colleagues who argue over who gets to “spoon” with him in a moment of particular emotional need).   I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the show’s sympathetic and warm portrayal of a trans female prostitute…but she, too, is part of the larger point.  She is still a prostitute, and although he cares for her well-being, she exists only to comfort him.

Verdict:  No less sad than the others, but more aware of its absurdity and therefore more entertaining.

On the DVR/Unreviewed:  Astronaut Wives Clup, Mr. Robot, HUMANS, Scream, Zoo, Startup U.