The Big C

I have a new show that I love. I am, as of this moment, an episode and a half into the series and it's great. It was on after Weeds last week (another favorite, mainly because it's so messed up. Though, I'm really not happy with the first two episode. Since it's Showtime it won't have more than 12 episodes in the season so right now 1/6 of the season has been mediocre and that's not good) and it's a new show called The Big C starring Laura Linney and Oliver Platt. It's about Cathy who discovers she has cancer and doesn't really have that much long to live and starts doing some stuff a little differently. See, it's not that original an idea or concept but it's done so well. She is such a character. And so are her husband, son, doctor, brother, neighbor, and student. They are people we haven't seen on the screen yet and they're believable and that's why I love Showtime and HBO. Take away the graphic sex and violence and drugs and all the other things they're allowed to put in their shows, you still get quality television. Well-written, bizarrely funny, witty, and with razor-sharp intelligence. If I could marry TV channels, I would marry Showtime and HBO so hard. I would have a modern, kind of French, threesome marriage of lust and mutual respect.

It might not be a new thing to watch a woman go crazy on-screen but this show (as well as every other show on the aforementioned channels) not only humanizes the character of Cathy through real emotions such as fear of death and leaving her son behind, but manages to make it funny like when she asks her doctor to quit seeing her as another body and tell her what he thinks. He compliments her rack. It's the little quirks that make these shows stand out. What it comes down to is portraying people in extreme situations and just showing how everyone has a little insanity in them and that's what makes them human. Like Dexter which is about a serial killer who ends up with a family and kids, trying to figure out if being "normal" is his alter ego or not. Cathy hasn't told anyone why she's started acting so differently so it's really cool watching and understanding the way she's behaving while everyone is beyond confused and bewildered. Like when she tells her son he can't go to soccer camp (because she wants to spend time with him) and he just thinks she's being a bitch and still goes and she holds up the bus with a paintball gun and makes him get off.

"Cathy? I know you're here. The car's in the driveway and the smell of cruelty is in the air."