“Better Things”: A Great Show for Tired Parents

The problem with those riveting dramas with hour-long episodes is that you’ll watch one episode, and then the next one even though you know you shouldn’t, and maybe even the next one though you really know you shouldn’t, and then it’s 6:30 am the next morning and you’ve just poured coffee into the kids’ cereal.

Sometimes what you need is a really great show with 20-25 minute stand-alone episodes so you can watch one and go to sleep.  May I suggest “Better Things,” a show by and starring comedian/actress Pamela Adlon.  Adlon plays Sam Fox, an actor and single mom to 3 daughters.  Adlon is also a single mom to 3 daughters in real life, and this is one of the few shows I’ve watched that depicts parenting in a way that feels honest and real, how you’re always hauling ass for kids who love you but have little appreciation for most of what you do for them.  “Better Things” offers up an exhilarating combination of weirdness, humor, and the mundanity of everyday life.  Sam loves to cook, and there are often scenes in which she’s chopping vegetables, grating cheese, boiling pasta, things you rarely see people actually doing on TV.  The show also doesn’t shy away from frank, hilarious and compelling explorations of the female body, menstruation, menopause, colonoscopies, sexuality, and that complex generational interplay of kids getting older and more independent but still needing their mother, who’s going through menopause and getting arthritis in her hands, while her mother is also getting older and will one day soon no longer be able to care for herself. 

But don’t take my word for it; see why Vulture named “Better Things” the best-directed show on TV.

Watch it, love it, then go the f**k to sleep.

Streaming on Hulu.