Should You Engage In A Pursuit Of Happyish?

What Is This Thing?

Thom Payne, an advertising "creative," is moved to consider what happiness means to him when his antidepressants mess with his wang, a couple of hot shot Swedes mess with his job, and his forty-fourth birthday puts him, statistically, at the midpoint of his life.

When Is It On?

Sundays at 9:30 PM on Showtime.

Why Was It Made Now?

Because as long as TV's executive ranks are dominated by white men, they're going to keep greenlighting shows about white men's specific and endlessly fascinating problems? Also, a certain other show about the challenges faced by white men in advertising is about to sign off for good, so why not try to fill the void?

What's Its Pedigree?

Essayist, fiction writer, and sometime This American Life contributor Shalom Auslander created the show. Steve Coogan plays Thom, stepping in for original series star Philip Seymour Hoffman after his passing last year. Kathryn Hahn plays Lee, Thom's artist wife; Thom's office is also stocked with Carrie Preston (The Good Wife, True Blood), Bradley Whitford (The West Wing, Trophy Wife), and Reshma Shetty (Royal Pains), among others. Also appearing in the first two episodes are Andre Royo (The Wire) and Molly Price (Third Watch) as the Paynes' couple friends in their suburban town.

...And?

Any time Kathryn Hahn gets in front of viewers' eyes, it's a good thing. We were lucky to enjoy her for years in the sublime role of Jen Barkley on Parks & Recreation, and I hope she will return to her recurring role of Raquel Fein on Transparent in its second season and re-team with its creator, her Afternoon Delight director Jill Soloway. but her other TV roles have tended not to fare so well, from the sex-positive college student Tracy on Chozen to the prickly PR whiz Helen on the doomed American remake of Free Agents.

Hahn brings her earthy, salty charm to the role of Lee, an apparently mostly frustrated artist compensating for a childhood with a never-satisfied scold of a mother by indulging her skittish son Julian; she's pretty recessive in the series premiere (except when she calls out another mom at an indoor play park for obvious concern trolling), but the second episode makes a better showcase as she has to decide whether to pass on a coffin-sized gift -- apparently fragile -- that her jerk of a mother has mailed to Julian, the grandson she's apparently spent no time with, or to return it to sender to make a mean, vengeful point. It goes on a little long, and is a little overwritten, but by the end of the episode, all I wished was that the show were primarily about Lee, with Thom in the supporting role...

...except that would mean seeing less of Preston and Whitford at Thom's office, which would also be a shame. Preston is sharp as ever as Debbie, a colleague of Thom's trying to camouflage her age by wearing unbuttoned plaid shirts and toques to the office to create the illusion of youthful relevance for the Swedes' benefit; hilariously, her millennial look could be shared by Sutton Foster's Liza, doing essentially the same thing over on Younger. Whitford is Jonathan, Thom's boss -- even older than Thom IF YOU CAN FATHOM IT, but better at going along to get along and not letting dumb shit bother him too much, a.k.a. a grownup who understands how jobs work, unlike some Thoms I could mention.

...But?

Of course it's hard to get to be an elder statesman in your field -- particularly one like advertising -- and realize that your experience is actually lowering your worth because such a premium is placed on youth; that part of Thom's story is real and could be relatable if it were happening to...literally anyone else on the show, but Thom is such a misanthropic asshole that he makes it impossible to care what happens to him. He's snotty to Debbie in private, and when The Swedes run an all-hands to lay out their vision for the ad agency, Thom derails it with a profane rant and then stomps out before the meeting is over. If he doesn't actually lose his job for that, I feel like nothing will? I mean, his assistant Lorna also walks in on him fucking his office couch; either HR at this company is completely useless or she didn't even bother reporting it.

What's worse is what's happening right before Lorna witnesses the couch assault, which is that Thom's having a fantasy revolving around the Swedes' suggestion that the agency pitch an idea replacing the Keebler elves with actual little people playing the same well-known characters. In Thom's reverie, the Keebler elves are violently murdered, and when the late Ernie's mother, Ma Keebler, shows up, she grows so delirious with grief that she ends up banging Thom. OMG IT'S SO TRANSGRESSIVE is what we're supposed to think, but it's just so corny. I mean, can any kid-friendly character really shock us with its sexual antics in a post-Meet The Feebles environment?

Furthermore, flights of fancy in the context of a white guy's totally predictable worries about his power and importance in a sitcom that's not actually that funny has been done this year, by Man Seeking Woman. It was tiresome then, but at least that protagonist had the excuse of being young and feckless. Thom is old. He shouldn't be angry that he doesn't know better by now; he should be embarrassed. I was certainly embarrassed for him.

...So?

After finishing the second episode, I IMed my esteemed colleague Sarah and gave her a précis of my reaction: "I'm so sick of men." #NotAllMen, but I've definitely had enough of white men on TV having anxiety about any challenge to their privileged stature in society. If you still miss Mind Of The Married Man, this might be for you? I don't, and I feel like I've seen enough.