X
- FX
- Sep 6, 2016
- FX
- Sep 6, 2016
Summary The Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K. co-created comedy series focuses on a single mother/actress (Pamela Adlon) raising three children.
Created By: Pamela Adlon, Louis C.K.
- FX
- Sep 6, 2016
- FX
- Sep 6, 2016
Summary The Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K. co-created comedy series focuses on a single mother/actress (Pamela Adlon) raising three children.
Created By: Pamela Adlon, Louis C.K.
Where to Watch
Season Episodes
View All Seasons
5 Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 32 Critic Reviews
80
84% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
13% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 32 Critic Reviews
80
84% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
13% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Better Things is really about relationships between mothers and daughters, poignant and frustrating and human and hilarious. At telling that story, it's the best.
She’s a terrific and effortlessly funny actress who establishes vivid characters with vivid lives. But Sam Fox obviously required a bigger reach, and Adlon accomplishes that here.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 116 User Ratings
7.8
84% Positive
97 Ratings
97 Ratings
10% Mixed
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
6% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 116 User Ratings
7.8
84% Positive
97 Ratings
97 Ratings
10% Mixed
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
6% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
Adlon’s performance is so good, you get--and want--her in nearly every scene, just to see how she’s going to react: to this kid’s temper tantrum, to that rude producer’s snarky comment. It’s a star vehicle that feels like it’s introducing you to an entire family--and an entire universe you want to inhabit.
Everything here feels lived in and actual.
Where “Louie” is frequently taken by flights of fancy and an inexhaustible curiosity about why the world is what it is, “Better Things” is, so far, more focused on the Fox family’s daily grind. The world is full of puzzles, but Sam and her daughters largely leave others to the solving.
The series is ambitious, unafraid to take on hot topics, but it doesn't let discussions of those issues unravel organically. Some themes are evoked suddenly and then quickly abandoned.
Better Things is a faithful female-themed re-creation of Louis C.K.'s other shows: witless and angry, mistaking contempt for satire, self-important in its clueless disregard for plot, characterization or other niceties of the performing arts.
Love, love, love, Better Things, but I knew I would. Loved Pamela in Lucky Louie & Louie, I am thrilled that she has her own show, I have been waiting for someone, somewhere to wise up and see what so many of us see in her! I see only better things to come. Well deserved!
Report
SEASON 1
If you like Louie C.K. (Whats with these guys and sexual weirdness?)then you will enjoy Better Things. However if not, you will find this distinctly average and unoriginal , predictably jammed packed with cliched tropes. Especially the sardonic jaded heroine single mom with truly obnoxious children. There are a couple of smiles but very few. The shallow pointless materialistic narcissism of Californian life is on full display and it’s not funny, even ironically. I gave up after episode 4, which ended in a smash the patriarchy march. Yip, really funny stuff.
Report
SEASON 1
Even though the first episode was only ~20 minutes long, I got bored pretty fast. The actors are trying too hard to make us laugh, and most of the time it doesn't work. I felt sorry for the overly hyperactive lead actress, but I blame the people who told her she's a good comedian. Anyway, not my kind of show.
Report
SEASON 1
I really wanted to like this show. She's great. I loved her as Bobby Hill, Louie, "The Facts of Life" even "The Sure Thing". But it just doesn't live up to the hype. There's a lot of "look at me" directing choices that detract from the story. As a fellow single mom I get where she's coming from. However I never get the sense that she views parenting as anything but a source of aggravation. Where is the tenderness? Why is Dad not involved? The kids are not little so he had to be involved for years. It was frustrating. Here's a crazy suggestion, establish some boundaries. Of course it's crazy when three girls do whatever they want, whenever they want. It's hard to relate to her burden when a lot of it is self induced. I gave up halfway through episode 4.
Report
SEASON 1
