Enlightened

Enlightened is very well written and Laura Dern is excellent in her role as the protagonist.

A character that is hard to like, and actually annoying, and yet you still feel empathy for her and she fumbles through life, trying to do good.

It's a great mix of social commentary, satire and a dark humor brought to life with a mix of interesting, awkward, sad and oblivious characters.

I do find it leaves me feeling a little uneasy and pensive, and yet I still want to watch more because it is so well done.

If you are all about feel good, pure entertainment - then this is not a show for you.

So here we have Mike White doing what he does best: spearheading a project that's one part subversive, one part cynical, one part hopeful and one part lethally and blackly comic.

Enlightened works on many levels because of this but it's also this uber-quirky quality that turns a lot of people who don't have the patience or the understanding of what they're watching off.

Dern's Amy Jellicoe character is not likable, which is a huge gamble from the get-go,especially for a female character; men on TV shows - as in real life - tend to be given far more leeway, to say the least. All the characters on the show are deeply flawed, of course, but these people are not caricatures, they're all three-dimensional and doing the best they can at their respective levels of consciousness.

It's interesting how Amy, beginning in season one, had been trying to find some sort of inner peace but soon as she returns to work at her vile company, that intention flies out the window.Rather than quitting her job, as anyone who genuinely was seeking peace would most likely do, she stays and takes on a new, seemingly better, more 'important' ego identity: agent of change. This is hilarious to me, because in substituting one ego identity for another she is still as lost and as fragmented as she was in the very beginning, if not more so. I'm hoping that White understands this, because I'm not sure how enlightened he actually is(because the actual subject of the title has not been dealt with in anything but superficial terms), but either way it plays as good television.

My favorite episode was the one in season two called The Ghost Is Seen, where White's basically sadsack character Tyler narrates instead of Amy, sharing with the audience about how he feels invisible, how he's lonely, how his life has been empty, until he meets Eileen, played beautifully by the always wonderful Molly Shannon. Ironically, of course - this is a Mike White show, remember - he's in the process of betraying her as they speak, breaking into her computer to get lethally damaging evidence against the company. This episode was brilliantly written and enacted, with White's voice-over narration being profoundly moving.

I only hope he gets a chance for a third season; in light of all the garbage that gets renewed - like Girls, for instance - I think this show warrants another shot, at the very least. UPDATED 3/20/13: Cancelled. Too subversive for HBO, apparently. Not surprised.

I read somewhere that this show was one of the best new shows of the year, so I started watching it on demand. I find it to be a very interesting mix of humor, drama, and intrigue. Laura Dern is great as an almost completely unpredictable person. It's almost scary to say that her character is like more than a few people I've met in my life.

This show covers work, home, friends, and life matters in a pretty realistic way. As in life, sometimes it's the verbal and sometimes it's the nonverbal communication that conveys the best message. The actors are doing a great job with the material, and I'm now on episode 7 and the show feels like it's getting even more interesting. I have to say, I'm pretty addicted to wanting to get to know these people more...and seeing where it all goes.

If you're into subtle, sometimes dark humour with a twist of quirk, you'll get a kick out of this one.

I watched Season 1 & 2 back to back so its fair to say I was addicted. The episodes are short, yet packed with enough substance that you'll be left wanting more.

Dern's character is likable just not to anyone she knows. After suffering a breakdown, she returns to her life with higher hopes of - everything. Don't we all wish for a better world? What I like about Dern's character is that she has good intentions. She's just completely misunderstood by everyone around her and is dismissed as a neurotic maniac with no sense of self awareness.

She desperately wants to find a purpose in life but eventually makes 'good' with what she's got and.. its interesting enough.

The character development is well written and does a good job to explore the complexity of human relationships. There's unexpected humour and awkwardness and ultimately I felt myself rooting for Dern to 'stick it to the big guys!

Its kind of like 30 Rock had a baby with Weeds that was raised by Broad City. Highly recommended.

The A.V. Club named this the best series of 2013, beating out popular favorite Breaking Bad and angering many readers who had never even heard of this obscure HBO series. It aired its first, 10 episode season in late 2011. Its second, 8 episode season aired at the beginning of 2013. A third season was planned, but HBO canceled it. Watching the first season, I was a little perplexed at where the praise had come from. Laura Dern is good in the lead, playing Amy Jellicoe, a woman working at a high position at a pharmaceutical company who gets fired after having an emotional breakdown. She goes to a New Age-y treatment facility in Hawaii and, six months later, returns to the company in a much lower position. She is a bit of a hippie, harping on her company's lack of ethics, which immediately gets her in trouble. I must say, the first season seems all like set-up with no pay off. If I were watching it on TV, especially if I had to wait the whole year for it to air its second season, I probably wouldn't have continued with it. But I bought both seasons at once, so eight more episodes weren't much of a commitment. And, man, that second season. It goes from a series that was decent but fairly unnotable to something truly special, something remarkably potent. Here is the pay-off in spades. The second season is so emotionally involving, so insightful into the human condition. Amy Jellicoe is a bit of a pill, but you really understand her and I really appreciated a character like her, one who is far less than perfect. The two best episodes of the series have at their center a secondary character. "Higher Power" focuses on Amy's ex-husband, Luke Wilson, as he himself goes to Amy's treatment facility and tries to get clean. Wilson has always been an undervalued actor who is often misused, and he's never been better than in this television episode. In "The Ghost Is Seen," series creator and head writer Mike White (whose directorial debut, Year of the Dog, explored similar themes to this series), who co-stars as Amy's lonely best friend at work, falls in love with Molly Shannon (who starred in Year of the Dog), while he simultaneously betrays her trust. Diane Ladd also co-stars as Amy's mother, and I loved her relationship with her daughter. It was unique in that she's severely disappointed with her daughter and kind of distrusts her.