Post by Ripley on Nov 2, 2015 17:22:56 GMT -5
Please Like Me is an Australian sitcom that is anything but silly and full of laugh track. Creator Josh Thomas has created a wonderful group of characters (based in part upon his own life experiences) who are nuanced and struggling- with relationships, with mental illness, with parents who make mistakes, start new families or have trouble understanding their children. If you have not yet seen PLM on Pivot, it is worth checking out.
"...After traipsing through endless rows of booths (at NYCC) -- the brands! so many brands! -- we sat down for a panel on LGBTQ representation in popular culture. Applicable, right? The 2013 pilot of "Please Like Me" finds Josh's fictional counterpart, also named Josh, being dumped by his girlfriend, who also informs him that he is gay. Across the first two seasons' 16 episodes, which resemble a less topsy-turvy version of the 20-something soul-searching on HBO's "Girls," the character endures his messy first attempts at proper romance while living with his straight best friend Tom (played by Thomas Ward, who co-writes the show and is Josh Thomas' actual longtime pal) and navigating his divorced mother's admittance to a mental hospital following her suicide attempt...
"...Chatting with the 28-year-old Thomas is quite similar to watching his "Please Like Me" character. Thomas' ever-tousled hair is complemented by wry observational chatter, an extension of a decade of stand-up experience that began in earnest when he became the youngest winner of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's competition for emerging performers. He has no desire to return to stand-up, but he also isn't confident he has enough ideas to write a fourth season of "Please Like Me." After finishing his American press tour, Thomas and Ward are journeying to Mexico to "wander around and eat tacos and talk about some things that have happened that
could go on" in Season 4. He joked that the networks -- ABC2 in Australia and Pivot in America -- might not even want to renew the show, but we can probably chalk that up to modesty: "Please Like Me" is a critical darling in both countries, and its current season was greenlit before Season 2 had even premiered...
...Thomas, in turn, may be growing up alongside Josh. When I interviewed him a year ago for Season 2, Thomas said he would never want to direct an episode. Now he's helmed Season 3's fourth installment, having filled in for the show's regular director, Matthew Saville. But by the same token, Thomas clearly isn't pining to dismiss his youthfulness too soon. He told the Sydney Morning Herald that he used One Direction and "Toy Story" dolls to create a storyboard for the episode. And the night before we met up, Thomas left his debit card in a Brooklyn ATM, where it was stolen. To top it off, Thomas' mother was flying to New York with his boyfriend's mother. The two had never met before, and by some millennial miracle, Thomas was completely unfazed. Maybe he never needed to grow up in the first place..."
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