Created by Darlene Hunt, The Big C is the latest Showtime dramedy centered on a strong female protagonist with issues; in this case, it's cancer, but it could easily be multiple personalities, a dead husband or drug problem. But while The United States of Tara, Weeds and Nurse Jackie all found time to integrate other characters into their stories, The Big C doesn't seem all that concerned with giving audiences anyone else to root for besides Linney's Cathy. Sure, she's great -- television suits Linney quite well -- but since this isn't a one-woman show, that isn't enough.
Goodness, where to begin? Cathy is married to Paul, an overgrown baby who gives the term man-child a bad name and is played by Oliver Platt as if his direction was "pretend you're an alien who has just arrived on Planet Earth and taken human form." Then there's their son Adam (Gabriel Basso), a squeaky-voiced high schooler who loves pranks like pretending to be a home invader. Too bad he can't seem to figure out how to flush a toilet. We're meant to assume that Adam is his father's offspring -- and he's obnoxious, immature and utterly annoying, so, check -- but that either of Cathy's relationships would pass the smell test is hard to fathom.
Cathy is presented as some uptight model citizen, newly free to act spontaneous and "grab life by the balls" (Showtime's ridiculous tagline for the series) thanks to a death sentence she's keeping from her family. Still, if she married Paul and has put up with a son like Adam, she clearly seized life long ago: Who else would willingly allow themselves such daily insanity besides someone who was on the way out? (Don't even get me started on Cathy's brother Sean, an environmentalist who eats garbage.)
This is not to say there aren't glimmers of hope (Gabourey Sidibe co-stars as one of Cathy's students and participates in the funniest moment of the pilot, while Reid Scott, as Cathy's doctor, has an easy rapport with Linney that goes beyond sexual tension) but with such trying secondary players, The Big C ultimately is what it is: a show about watching a middle-aged woman live while dying. That's a tough sell anyway; wrote James Hibberd for THR, "Life's too short to watch a TV show about a lovely woman dying of cancer" -- but Adam and Paul make it borderline intolerable. Hope the diagnosis gets better as time passes (appearances by Liam Neeson, Idris Elba and Cynthia Nixon could do the trick), but in the meantime, tread very lightly.