Formulaic Showtime series growing like ‘Weeds’

It turns out that too much of a good thing is still, in the end, just too much.

Beginning with "Weeds" (10 p.m. Monday) and seemingly ending with the new comedy "The Big C" (10:30 p.m. Monday), Showtime assembled a lineup that enabled it to rise up and challenge the mighty HBO for premium cable supremacy.

With the exception of the terrific "Dexter," this ascension was all thanks to series that followed a now-familiar template: Take a talented actress "of a certain age," give her at least one child (the more maladjusted the better), tack on a secret, then festoon it with dark humor, and you have a critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated, buzz-worthy hit on your hands.

It was TV programming multiple choice-style: ("Weeds"/"Nurse Jackie"/"United States of Tara"/"The Big C") stars (Mary-Louise Parker/Edie Falco/Toni Collette/Laura Linney) as (Nancy Botwin/Jackie O'Hurley/Tara Gregson/Cathy Jamison), a (widow/nurse/painter/teacher) with (a marijuana business/a drug habit/multiple personalities/cancer).

That trend quickly grew repetitive, though, and the pay channel is expected to pursue different types of programming now that Robert Greenblatt, the architect behind its sudden prominence, has stepped down. Still, while some lighter fare most likely will be put into development, Showtime won't be turning into the Disney Channel anytime soon -- a reality series about Las Vegas gigolos is reportedly in the works.

As for the series that started it all, "Weeds" returns for its sixth season with the Botwin family on the run after Nancy's teenage son Shane (Alexander Gould) ended this past season by killing Pilar (Kate del Castillo) -- the political adviser to Nancy's husband, a violent drug kingpin and Tijuana's mayor, during his gubernatorial campaign -- with a croquet mallet after she threatened the lives of Shane and his older brother, Silas (Hunter Parrish).

It was just another step in the once wickedly funny comedy's descent into darkness. And one more example of Nancy's horrific parenting skills, the sort of indifferent upbringing rarely seen outside the Lohan and Gosselin clans.

"I'm not going until everyone's buckled," Silas says with a sigh as he prepares to drive the getaway car. "Someone has to be a role model around here."

There's no shortage of involved parenting, though, on "The Big C." When Linney's Cathy learns she has stage four melanoma, she promises to make the most of what's left of her life, but she mainly ends up trying to mother anyone who wanders into her field of vision.

She treats her Vespa-riding husband (Oliver Platt) like the child he never stopped being by kicking him out of the house for Riverdancing on the sofa and drunkenly peeing in the yard.

She finds herself in a public wrestling match with her hippie, environmentalist brother (John Benjamin Hickey) for the crime of trying to set him up financially and suggesting he stop willingly residing in a Dumpster.

She even takes a special interest in a troubled, foul-mouthed student (Gabourey Sidibe).

But she saves her most intense mothering for her listless teenage son (Gabriel Basso), whom she vows to make self-sufficient before she dies, even if it means setting the clothes he refuses to pick up ablaze. "From now on," she fumes, "I'm gonna raise you so hard your head's gonna spin!"

And she does all this without admitting to any of them that she has cancer -- preferring they think she's cruel, crazy or both -- because that's just the sort of reserved, straight-laced person she is. Or was. Her grimy brother is quick to point out toward the end of Monday's premiere, "You're startin' to get your weird back, sis."

Given its subject matter, "The Big C" isn't nearly as dark as AMC's "Breaking Bad," which also used a cancer diagnosis to set in motion some pretty drastic lifestyle changes. And, so far, it's the most lighthearted series on Showtime.

Helping to keep things from becoming suffocating bleak, the series isn't really about Cathy's cancer so much as how having it has changed her: Cathy seems more bemused than self-pitying given her grim prognosis. "The silver lining is," she reassures herself, "I'll be dead before my wrinkles get too deep." But that's about as close as "The Big C" comes to what you might call tumor humor.

If there's a problem with "The Big C," it's an overreliance on the type of long, showy monologues and soliloquies that Emmy voters love. Cathy seems to enjoy the sound of her own voice more than "Designing Women's" Julia Sugarbaker.

But that's a small price to pay for a series that feels like a breath of fresh air after the painful-to-watch "Nurse Jackie" and "United States of Tara."

Hopefully, "The Big C" will be able to maintain the sort of highwire act that, through its early episodes, has enabled it to strike a balance between the bouts of laughter and the seriousness of Cathy's predicament.

She, and this era of Showtime, deserve to go out with a little dignity.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com.