HAPPYish

Caught this last night and was pleasantly surprised - hadn't read about it beforehand, didn't realize Coogan and John Cameron Mitchell were involved, so I was doubly pleased.

Coogan's character sets the tone perfectly from the get-go, with his 'f-you' voice-over regarding Mount Rushmore: we know we're in for a no-holds-barred look at these peoples' lives, and that is indeed what we get in the half-hour pilot, which could have gone on longer, as far as I'm concerned.

This subject - trying to find the balance between what you get in Life and what you think you wanted - perfectly illustrated by the show's title - has been covered before, many times. But Happyish surprisingly manages to conjure a fresh take on it, because of the individuality of the characters. Good writing, excellent acting, huge watchability factor, with plenty of room to grow, and I am most definitely in.

Excellent show! Great cast for the wittiest, life based comedy I've watched so far. It will sting, sometimes even hurt, to be confronted with some of the silliest things we all have to deal with in our lives, but if you are not a cynic it will make you laugh! Pertinent questions are asked and answered in this show. We've all stopped to think about the meaning of things and of life itself from time to time. This show is so brilliantly written that it will, most certainly, bring up that one question you keep asking yourself and your friends. It will deconstruct it and turn it into something laughable. It will make you Happy-ish!

As a 50 something advertising copywriter I laughed and squirmed at the ad agency scenes, all so very true sadly.We've all seen 20 something creatives talking crap and getting away with it because the elder bosses are running scared in a digital world.

However aside from that the whole thing was a bit of a mish mash with the writer often putting speeches in the characters' mouths when they didn't gel with the character. A strong show runner would have deleted much of the script and tightened up the rest.No one seems to have dared confront the writer on anything.

I watched it all, to see how Thom would get on, but it was an uphill struggle against show off scriptwriting, ideas that should have been left on the cutting room floor and characters that were all universally unlikeable.

I love the sense of humor of this show. The humor is dry and sometimes corky. For those of us entering our 40's it's really a questioning time of life. You look at things so differently, well much like the show. In season 1 E2 she refers to life as living in her bubble. Seriously life has pushed many of us into that bubble because of the negatively out there. The show does a great job capturing that underlying drama of being in your 40's and working for and with twenty year olds. Finally a show that's not all about living the "Partridge" family life. I feel as though this sector gets left out of TV because it's not a popular sense of humor or a totally positive way to look at others. The show defiantly doesn't hate on people for no reason but it surely points it out when people are wrong. Funny stuff.

I'm not sure how this series would be perceived by young people, or by seniors, but as a middle-aged person, I feel like the topics covered in this series are dead-on.

Ignore the characters for a moment. If you focus just on them, you might see this series as a story of entitled people who have all they need (and more) but still feel unhappy. To me that's not the message at all. Through these characters the viewer is exploring a rather serious topic in our modern society. What makes us happy? Or perhaps more accurately, why are so many people unhappy? Anti-depressants are the most profitable pharmaceutical drug of this century. They don't really cure anything yet so many people are, or have been on them. Why? Are we all just a bunch of malcontents or is something really wrong here?

Statistics have shown that people in their 40's are the least happy demographic but that they find themselves again in their 50's. What changes in those few years? I believe it's that we go through a second rebellion. If we are smart, we concentrate on life, living, being with those we care about and caring less about how we look, and what other people think. Downscaling, shedding responsibilities, finding more time for leisurely pursuits and spending less time working or chasing a fleeting goal - these things are important.

We've all been sold a bill of good by our parents, schools, media and advertisers. Go to school, then college, fall in love, get married, buy a house, eat this, buy that, achieve success - and so on. Increasingly, people feel like this model of happiness doesn't fit for them.

Look around, people are quietly ditching our commercial culture for one that fits their real needs.

Despite persistent messages that consumption and conformity are the paths to happiness, many of us are increasingly learning that following our own path is what we really should be doing.

Great series. Very inspiring - but watch it with the attitude that much of what is depicted is metaphorical. It leaves the viewer to ponder what it is that they gave up to be just another cog in the machine.

And a side-note to the guy who said; "worst liberal self hating selfish ,me,me,me,me bull crap." This is not a story of liberals or conservatives. You have missed the point entirely. Depression and self-doubt do not favour any particular political persuasion. I suggest you re-watch without the political bias. Interpret Happyish in black and white and you'll miss the shades of grey in this, and in real life.