jinchelsea

Okay, I keep reading these raves, and wondering what all the fuss is about. As a longtime New Yorker, and born long enough ago to get all the references, I keep waiting for this to be anything but a standard shtick comedy cliché. Cool 50s clothes (and endless misplaced music, that just keeps going back and forth from 50s to 60s) are not enough to surmount a lack of reality (and if you're going to bring Lenny Bruce into this morass, you do need some reality).

Does anyone really believe that this upper middle class Jewish housewife swears like a truck driver when "under the influence," whether it's alcohol or her first joint, shows off her breasts, and curses at a judge? If it wants to be funny, it will have to try a lot harder to avoid the clichés (and that includes casting such scenery chewers as Mary Testa and Caroline Aaron).

Know we're in the minority here, but this series needs a lot better writing to carry off the premise. I will admit that the third episode is slightly less irritating than the first two, but this will never be a go-to series for me in the long run.

As an older gay man, I have great admiration and respect for the transgendered community, but I think that the press reviewers of TRANSPARENT are bending way over backwards to cheer this cheerless dramedy. Tambor, who is not an actor I have much liked in the past, is really excellent as the trans dad; he brings real poignance to a show that has little heart for the rest of its characters. The characters of the children are caricatures; none of them are real or honest or worthy of our time, just a bunch of spoiled, miserable people who inflict their misery on others. No one, not even loving parents, would put up with them for a moment, and none of the goings-on are real enough or funny enough to touch or entertain us. Even the wonderful Judith Light has nothing but clichés to play.

I doggedly went on to season 2, and it only got worse. After 5 episodes, I am done.