'Catastrophe': A Smart, Funny, Lewd, Pregnant Sitcom
One of the smartest, most charming and funny shows you’re likely to see all year is Catastrophe, a sitcom about an American man (Rob Delaney) visiting London who meets an Irish woman (Sharon Horgan). They flirt, launch a week-long affair, and when she discovers she’s pregnant, they decide to give this relationship thing a go.
The premise sounds both far-fetched and rom-com-y, but since when have those two elements prevented enjoyment? The key here is the personalities involved. Delaney, who has a million-plus following on Twitter for his genially blunt punchlines, and Horgan, who’s well-known overseas for a Brit-com called Pulling, make for a wonderfully charismatic yet astringent duo. Before the pregnancy brings them back together, they’ve agreed it was pleasant to shag for a week, he complimenting her as an “extraordinarily good-smelling woman with a magical ass,” she returning the favor by noting he was a “sturdy love-maker with a massive chin,” which will give you some idea of the precisely-worded comedic observations here.
As Rob and Sharon, they’re cheerfully lewd and crude, yet also intelligent, witty, and kind to each other. They are a rarity among lovers in sitcoms: mature people who don’t spend a lot of time leering at other attractive people or engaging in trumped-up, banal, ooh-you-forgot-my-birthday squabbles. The pregnancy forces a fast-forward in their relationship — they don’t get to (or have to) go through all the getting-to-know-you, deciding-we’re-ready kind of thing we expect to experience in real life or in entertainment depictions of having a baby.
The cross-cultural element works exceedingly well, too. Rob’s in advertising; she’s a primary-school teacher. The show doesn’t make Rob an ignorant American, and her friends and family aren’t impeccably articulate snobs. Indeed, nobody much cares for anybody in this group, but instead of hostility, Sharon’s brother, parents, and friends all insult each other and Rob with a brisk energy. The primary glimpse we get of Rob’s Stateside family is recurring guest star Carrie Fisher as his mother, an amusingly cranky woman who really can’t be bothered to get excited or upset over Rob’s plans to stay in England and become a dad.
Like HBO’s recent Togetherness, Catastrophe wants to depict relationships in many stages and with some subtlety, offsetting that subtlety with regular blasts of vulgarity. In Catastrophe’s case — and if you’re wondering about the title, it refers in part to both some pregnancy health scares for Sharon (who’s in her 40s) — the complexity of the duo’s reactions just deepens the comedy. This is easily Amazon’s best new sitcom (and no, I haven’t forgotten Transparent).
In a special promotion, Catastrophe can be viewed on Facebook starting June 15 for 48 hours. The show’s six-episode first season premieres in its entirety on June 19 on Amazon.
