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've started watching this show yesterday and I'm on 4th episode at the moment. The current rating of 6.9 is too low for this show, IMO. US voters gave lower ratings than those of us who live outside of USA. Maybe it's because Americans don't know Coogan or they don't like to see a Brit in the leading role. I am a big fan of Coogan and he is magnificent in "Happyish". Recently I've seen the actress who's playing his wife in "Transparent", another great new show.

"Happyish" reminds me of Woody Allen's movies, the protagonist is troubled with existential crisis and the show deals with different aspects of media culture, current corporate climate, parenthood and middle age. It gives us a strong social commentary and the critique of contemporary culture. It juxtaposes the new world of young and cocky executives with the world of middle aged people who are trying to find their place in this new and fast-changing world.

When Lee talks about her "bubble", she mentions that she is not on Facebook or Twitter, in that way she protects her family from outside intruders. I like that message a lot. When I think about it, I see a lot of families who share photos of their children on social network sites, some even open Facebook profiles for their newborn babies. People document every mundane experience and post about it - we've became extremely narcissistic and dependent on approval of others through fishing for Facebook "likes" and such. I'm 29 y.o., but I can relate to Mr. and Mrs. Payne a lot more than to any other character on this show.

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.