Review: "The Big C" is a Show About Cancer That Also Makes Fart Jokes

Oliver Platt cops a feel

Warning: This review includes very minor spoilers about the upcoming season of The Big C.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of the relatively recent explosion in premium cable TV "dramedies" like Weeds, United States of Tara, Nurse Jackie, Hung, Episodes, and The Big C, which returns to Showtime tonight.

On one hand, I love the irreverent vibe on these shows, and their willingness to push limits in terms of content and nudity. Plus, they're all chock full of very enjoyable A-List movie talent (on-screen and behind-the-scenes) who don't ordinarily do television.

But A-List talent and more artistic freedom does not always make for a "better" TV experience — as disastrous recent seasons of Weeds and United States of Tara attest.

(Weirdly, I think the most consistently "great" of these shows is also the one that helped start the whole premium cable dramedy renaissance in the first place: Sex and the City. Sure, it's in vogue to mock those four ladies now — because the last movie both sucked and tanked, and also because our society really likes to mock older women — but go back and watch the original show: the writing is surprisingly tight, and the whole thing is enormously entertaining. And while it no longer seems nearly as "shocking" as it once did, that's only because so many of the ideas and TV tropes that they pioneered are now completely mainstream. It's easily one of the most influential shows of the last twenty years.)

Which brings us to the second season of The Big C.

I liked the first season — I didn't love it, but I liked it — mostly because of its fab star, Laura Linney, a gay fav who is still totally underrated in my book, despite multiple Oscar nominations and Emmy wins.

A couple of the first seasons eps really sang, especially the finale. But not all of the humor worked, and I thought they went to ridiculous lengths to keep Cathy from telling anyone the truth, only so they could tout the fact that the first season was about the "denial" stage of cancer.

That season dealt mostly with Cathy's increasingly erratic behavior, because she was avoiding telling the people in her life what was really going on: her self-centered friend Rebecca (Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon), her psychotic (literally) brother Sean (out actor John Benjamin Hickey), her sullen son Adam, her neurotic husband Paul (Oliver Platt), and her truth-telling student Andrea (Precious' Gabourey Sidibe)

In this new season, the first four episodes of which have been provided to AfterElton.com for review, Cathy finally fesses up — and to the show's great credit, it doesn't draw this out. Everyone learns the truth in the first episode (and while they're all mostly supportive, they all also quickly revert to their own self-centered worlds — something that strikes me as extremely realistic).

So how's the rest of the show?

Linney is still far and away the best thing about it. But I also thought the writing was better than last season: things move faster, and the season has more momentum, in part because Cathy is being more proactive about her illness (she's taking part in a new treatment program).

Meanwhile, each episode has a bit more structure too. The third episode is about how — no joke! — Cathy's cancer affects everyone's sex life.

The humor is funnier too. When Cathy returns to school as a teacher with cancer, she (and Adam) are annoyed by how "supportive" everyone is — and by how everyone bonded with her substitute teacher after a mere four weeks. "She has her plush toys all over my desk!" Cathy fulminates.

And a reoccurring joke in the premiere episode about Adam farting all the time has one of the best, funniest TV pay-offs I've seen in ages.

A show about cancer doing fart jokes? You gotta love that!

Meanwhile, old acting pros Alan Alda (as a new doctor with terrible bedside manner), John Benjamin Hickey, and Cynthia Nixon remind us yet again how talented they are — and how good actors can play completely different characters completely convincingly. And Gabriel Basso, who plays teenage Adam, may currently be TV's most realistically acted teenage boy.

Other things work less well. I'm still not seeing what Linney ever saw, or still sees, in her overly needy husband (Platt). And they may have intended Hugh Dancy, guesting as a fellow cancer patient, to be irreverent or zen or something, but he mostly comes across as annoying, at least at first.

As much as I want to like Sidibe's wiser-than-her-years teen, she still seems mostly like a plot device to me.

And because this season is determined to focus on the next stage of Cathy's emotional journey — "grief" — the show still sometimes has a "slight," meandering feel to it, despite the magnitude of the topic.

Bottom line? If you loved this show last year, you'll probably like this year even more. If you were less of a fan, you might still be frustrated by some of the kinks that still haven't been fully ironed out.

The Big C airs Monday nights at 10:30 PM on Showtime