Please Like Me Makes It Pretty Easy To Obey Its Titular Command

The first thing you need to know is that there is a new cable channel called Pivot. It launched on August 1, on what used to be the Documentary Channel, with backing from Participant Media and a mandate to air socially progressive programming. Like all new cable networks, it's still settling into its stated identity: I'm not quite sure how Farscape fits in (and...please don't tell me), but it's already aired Terms And Conditions May Apply, a documentary (produced by our own John Ramos!) about online privacy, American Teacher, and Hotel Rwanda, among many others; Friday Night Lights is also among its primetime offerings, which I especially love because I feel like it was always praised more for its Texas-iness than for its progressive storylines, stealthy though they could be. But the show the network is pushing the hardest -- I've seen multiple city buses here in L.A. wrapped in promotional posters for it -- is an Australian sitcom called Please Like Me.

Josh Thomas created and wrote the show and also plays its lead (also named Josh). And because the show stars its creator and deals frankly and comically with sexual matters as they are experienced by young persons, it's drawn comparisons to Girls, and though I haven't watched enough Girls to know, Thomas is apparently fine with it, so I can hardly get too exercised about it. The sexual matters being dealt with comically and frankly are a bit different here, though: as the series starts, Josh gets dumped by his girlfriend, Claire (Caitlin Stasey), on the grounds that he's probably gay. When Josh later goes to visit his friend and roommate Tom (Thomas Ward) at Tom's office, he immediately gets hit on by Tom's colleague Geoffrey (Wade Briggs) and basically just rolls with it, ending up back at his apartment to fool around. Throughout, he's dodging calls from his dad (David Roberts), and doesn't find out until much later why there were so many; turns out Josh's mum (Debra Lawrance), whose divorce from Josh's dad still seems to be fairly recent, attempted suicide by taking pills. It's decided that Josh will move back home to keep an eye on her, which puts a crimp in his new dating life.

The most radical aspect of the show is how matter-of-factly it treats Josh's "new" sexual identity. At one point, Josh is telling Tom he doesn't trust Geoffrey's interest in Josh because Geoffrey's so much better-looking than Josh is -- which, by the way is accurate.

But then Tom is like, are we going to talk about the fact that you're suddenly dating a guy and Josh is like, ughhhhhh, coming out is so '90s. There are conversations in which Josh brings Dad, his Christian Aunty Peg (Judi Farr) up to speed on what his deal is, but (spoiler) everyone behaves pretty decently about it, partly because no one is really that surprised. After all, Josh has always liked to bake.

Josh's relationship with Geoffrey is, of course, the primary focus of the show's six-episode season, and it's handled nicely; Josh's selfishness and skittishness are both issues, but Geoffrey is uncommonly kind and patient, making them complementary for a while, until Josh starts taking too much advantage of Geoffrey's good nature. But the other plotlines are good too: Josh has lots of funny moments with Aunty Peg, and his sweetness and solicitousness toward Mum make you wonder if he'll eventually figure out how to apply those good impulses to his relationship with Geoffrey. Tom's sort-of girlfriend Niamh (Nikita Leigh-Pritchard) is an effectively horrible nightmare of a person; and Dad's new girlfriend Mae (Renee Lim) upends what seems at first like a dragon lady stereotype. Without spoiling anything, I'll say the season wraps up in a satisfying way and that I definitely wanted to spend more time with the characters.

Because Pivot is so new, it's showing Please Like Me pretty much all the time: for most of this month, it's been marathoning all six episodes at a time, but the next airings will be the first three tonight starting at 9:30 PM EDT, and then the latter three starting at the same time tomorrow; after that, the episodes are going to be scattered more haphazardly through the schedule, so this is your chance to be efficient and fully prepare for Season 2, whenever that may be.