Now that Happyish is officially canceled, I'm searching for answers as to why it didn't make it. I watched the show every week, which may seem odd since I really wasn't a fan of the series. I suppose the talented Brit, Steve Coogan and Bradley Whitford, pulled me in at first. Then, the quirky, irreverent humor interested me. However, the main problem with Happyish is that it presents no truly likable characters. The central family is miserable and seems to wallow in self-pity in such a pathologically unhealthy way that the audience becomes uncomfortable and a bit embarrassed. Since the family is attractive, live in an upscale home, are educated and have enviable careers, it's difficult for most viewers to empathize with their misery. The scripts sort of repeat the same overused refrain each week--millennials and Swedes are all evil villains and corporate America eats people's souls. There is no subtext or probing for deeper insights, just the cloying monotony of rather overdone story lines. All the characters, even the Swedish group who take over the ad company, are one dimensional and shallow. I've begun to wonder why so much contemporary television uses Swedish people as the antagonists--are Swedes now the postmodern symbols of blond, blue eyed monsters--the entitled white power structure? To this point, in the incredibly well done HBO hit, Nurse Jackie, the writers pinned the downfall of the hospital, the central workplace and life-blood of the characters, on the Swedes. Have American TV producers simply run out of villains that are politically correct? Swedes, family angst, fear of aging, psychological despair and Jewish self-identity all get short shifted in Happyish and the viewer comes away not happyish at all.
