"Better Things", a TV series debuting on today on FX is directed by Pamela Adlon, is the lead role the Emmy winner has long deserved. Adlon is the co-creator (with Louis C.K.) and executive producer and writer and star of the outstanding "Better Things," arriving tonight.
According to Deadline, the strong and smart look at the perils of parents, parenthood, love and the chaos of the current life amid the constant notifications of smartphones will be one of the best things fans will see on TV this fall.
Adlon who plays, Sam Fox shows women can do it all. Adlon is the divorced mother of three daughters, a former child superstar now cobbling together a career as a day player in everything from sci-fi to semi-porn.
The storyline is all inspired by Adlon's real life, and that makes "Better Things" raw, very funny and realistic, if not when it is bringing us to tears. In the show, Sam is not a deliberately bad mom, but she has a lot on her plate, and sometimes, all slides off into the garbage.
The girls (Hannah Alligood as tween Frankie, whose right behind her but showing signs of being on the spectrum, Mikey Madison as teen Max and Olivia Edward as grade schooler Duke) are the most human TV kids fans will ever see, each troublesome and lovable in her own way. In addition, Sam has a garrulous mother, Phyllis (Celia Imrie), a British who lives next door.
Duke will be hard-forged into her own kind of person acting third string to the distinctively different Max and Frankie but, until then, at least provides her mother with a blindly loving invite at home every day, without the sass or growing pains of her sisters. And sometimes that's all Sam needs when the world has torn her apart for much of the day.
Sam has to deal with day-to-day crises in every episode of "Better Things," (Duke's school calls while she's doing voice-over for a cartoon; Max has a catastrophic party while Sam is out of town on a job) that feel familiar but also strikingly fresh.
"Better Things" will feature well-known actors among them Constance Zimmer, Julie Bowen and Bradley Whitford who have cameos as themselves, or versions of themselves.
But the TV show is really about relationships between poignant and frustrating, mothers and daughters and human and hilarious. And at telling such a story, "Better Things" does it to the best.
With the five reviewed episodes of "Better Things," there is more work to be done as it is still a developing work. But Adlon's distinctive voice makes it very intriguing and necessary even in this crowded TV universe.
The fact that the series is getting at ideas that Adlon getting at navigating the nuances of motherhood with the finely detailed personal issues of each daughter resulting to making the various storylines seem imbued with original, displays real truths of 2016 (and beyond).
According to Hollywood Reporter, "Better Things" presents Adlon's trademark hard truths, her dark comedic tones so evident on Louie prior, but it is also her coming-out series as a creator, as a skilled storyteller with a distinctive point of view all her own.
"Better Things" will premiers today, Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/PT (FX)
Watch "Better Things" Season 1 Official Trailer here: