Happyish

The script is by novelist and essayist Shalom Auslander, who created the show, and it is remarkably tight, thought-provoking, literary, and jeweled with absurdist wit.

Happish is impressive as it convincingly drives themes of selling, selling out, anger, whoredom, mortality and the true meaning of happiness--and whether it’s even attainable--drawing upon established talents such as Ellen Barkin, Carrie Preston, Molly Price and Andre Royo. They provide Coogan, Hahn and Whitford with great foils and sounding boards for both the mundane and serious matters addressed.

It's an intelligent, surreal, mildly outrageous--and most certainly outraged--satire of life in post-industrial America.

At its worst, Happyish feels like the mighty yawp of aging hipsters who are bitter for no good reason and weirdly out of touch with the way culture works. At its best, though, it’s like nothing else on TV.

At this point, there’s just too much good TV out there to bother with yet another just-OK show.

If I’ve left the impression that Happyish isn’t a laugh-fest, I’ve done my job. But the show is not without its pleasures. As I said, Coogan and Hahn have good chemistry, and there are some genuinely funny moments (none of which I can recall now). Ellen Barkin is exceedingly welcome any time she pops up briefly as Thom’s profane pal.

There's a funny and disturbingly insightful tale in Showtime’s latest unorthodox comedy. Regrettably, it often disappears under a lava flow of vulgarity.

Happyish emphasizes over-the-top profanity and a lot of anger at its surface. Dig deeper and there are some interesting ideas in play but getting past the show’s predilection for rants may ask too much of viewers who may share some of the same frustrations as the characters.

Coogan, who's used to carrying shows by the force of his personality, can be fun to watch, in measured doses.

[Shalom Auslande's] worldview is one part Christopher Hitchens, one part Samuel Beckett, one part Louis CK.... If all that makes his funny-ish new show sound bitter, angry, provocative and even compelling, then (well) that's because it is. But Happyish can also be wildly uneven and a little too smug in its certitude.

After three episodes, my head is bumping against my joy ceiling--with Happyish.

It’s not badly written at all; there are tour de force bursts of monologue and magma blasts of white-collar rage. But it is very written, very writerly; the only thing organic in this high-end suburb is the Whole Foods

The performances are good, the writing is often brainy, sharp and even funny, but there is a surfeit of “ish” and not enough “happy” to keep viewers coming back week after week, if they haven’t decided to just end it all after the first episode.

While Coogan is quite good, one still has to wonder what different wrinkles Hoffman might have brought to the material--or, for that matter, what so attracted either of them to a program that has its moments, but beyond the profanity-laced dialogue does little to fulfill the creative potential associated with premium cable.

Hoffman was replaced by the talented British comic actor Steve Coogan, and I can't fault his performance. I can fault Auslander for writing Thom as a sanctimonious, pedantic, needling, incessantly outraged man of privilege and then expecting us to care about him.

None of the cast, which also includes guest stars Ellen Barkin and Carrie Preston, is allowed to shine through the fussy, self-satisfied writing.

It plays like the work of someone who hasn't watched cable TV in the last 15 years and therefore doesn't realize what he thinks is bold and edgy is both tired and smug in an entirely unearned way.

Happyish has a few genuinely imaginative moments amid its many, many excesses. But in the end, it’s too much of a one-note Hell-On-Earth “Greatest Hits” album whose principal characters have the overall appeal of vinegar-drenched cotton candy.

The show is very much about Thom and his "struggles," which are far too often presented in a series of high-decibel, gratuitously profane diatribes about the habits of others without benefit of anything remotely resembling personal perspective.

Happyish, like so many other shows of its ilk, confuses mentioning weighty, philosophical topics with actually discussing or understanding them.... And worst of all, it's so, so derivative.

Happyish's failures are not Coogan's fault; he's fine, appealing, even, though the performance is a little superficial..... None of the show's emotions feel real at all.

Mr. Coogan makes a perfect Thom, since he is a master of drollery and his expressive face can telegraph defeat and sulky defiance at the same time. There are even some tentatively humorous moments here.... But few of the jokes feel modern, let alone witty.

Happyish is clever, but it’s so enamored of its own cleverness that it forgets to be funny.

There’s such a great cast on Happyish that if the writing gave them a little less so that they could do a little more, things might have worked out much better.

As it is, Coogan and the rest of the accomplished cast (which also includes Kathryn Hahn and Bradley Whitford) can’t overcome the smug, overwritten material from creator Shalom Auslander.

Thom believes happiness is an unattainable myth, and his artsy, aggravating series does its best to prove him right.

Talented actors like Coogan, Kathryn Hahn, Bradley Whitford, and Ellen Barkin are all quite capable of bringing zingy dialogue and nuanced characters to life, when provided with such. Here, they’re provided material that’s neither very good nor very bad. It’s just kind of... crappyish.

The dialogue in Happyish sounds forced and overly written from minute one.

The series is stricken with an insufferable inferiority complex.