Showtime New Series: The Big C (1 Viewer)

First Episode is online as a preview from Showtime:

No one watched this? This was a pretty good series and the ending last night was pretty emotional.


I wonder if there's a season 2 - The ending left it that it could go to another season or that could be the end.

It was up and down, but the longer the gambit went of her not telling people, the more I kept thinking to myself: this is going to chicken out, she'll tell, and then where do you go? Eventually, she has to die.


This is where Breaking Bad succeeded.. he completely sold out and changed everything for a set goal, and because of that unpredictability and trend it worked. The Big C came across as milquetoast "Breaking Bad".


It wasn't bad, but while Weeds was having one of those years were completely zany crazy things happen, and Dexter was... Dexter, it seemed to play it too safe and not enough wild. I think this could have went to some really dark and potentially hilarious places.. and they just couldn't do it.

Well, I think for a caliber of actress that Laura Linney is, it's sort of good to have a finite storyline so she can move on to other work, so I could see how a project like "The Big C" would be attractive to her.

Adam's reaction to the storage room contents was heartbreaking, probably the high point in earned emotion this season. But this series doesn't quite gell with the slice of life subplots observed through the lens of a woman with a terminal illness coping with life's finality on an accelerated deadline.

I haven't seen last nights episode but I think this has been a very good show.

I started watching this as a sort of quiet gift for my wife. She never asks to watch a show so we pretty much go by whatever I feel like watching (tho I will often take her into consideration - Glee over the Fringe ep I really want to watch). I figured this was a show she'd enjoy (esp after having to sit through Weeds and Dexter). I mean, everything about it screams 'chick show.' At any rate, it only held a cursory interest for her.

While I agree there were some problems with the show (and as soon as she told her husband I suspected the series wasn't going to last as long as originally planned) I quite enjoyed it. My only real annoyance was Linney always seemed to speak as if she were in a monologue play.

I had thoughts about the daughters of Marlene story line. The Marlene that Cathy knew was a cantankerous but lovable woman. The daughters knew her as a grouchy hard to get along with parent. While the way the daughters treated Marlene's possisions may seem to Cathy and the viewer as cruel, I couldn't help thinking if my mother referred to me and my same sex partner as dykes/faggots, and other such mean spirited comments they referred to, then maybe I wouldn't give a crap about her possessions either. I still liked it when she told them to get the fuck out, tho.

The last episode worked as a decent series finale, but I see that it's been picked up for another season.