Watching these episodes is an experience, and while Sam Fox stands tall as one of television’s best characters, Adlon has created a vehicle around her lead unlike anything else you’ll see.
Brilliant. ... The writing on this show is so smart in that the characters don’t all sound like mouthpieces from the same writing team as happens on most mediocre sitcoms. ... There’s a theory that TV and film needs to always be about people with lives more interesting than our own. What Pamela Adlon understands is that there’s equal value in presenting people as truthfully as possible, and thereby allowing us to see our own interesting lives reflected.
Not your average family, and not your average ****'s very funny, but it is also real, with moments of poignancy. There are moments that are truly surprising; the lack of hackneyed, formulaic writing is refreshing. So is the absence of precious kid scenes. The child actors are quite accomplished,and the stories are relatable, even though Sam, the mom, struggles with a career most of us only fantasized about, she definitely struggles. Mostly, though, and again, it is FUNNY. In this current atmosphere, which is riddled with angst, and various social issues, funny seems in short supply. But not here! Louis C K's hand is lighter than expected, and sometimes almost gentle. All tolled, this is a terrifically fun ride.
One of these days Emmy voters will notice that when it comes to half-hour TV direction, the thing Adlon is doing here, week in and week out, is astonishingly attentive, empathetic and, when it wants to be, hilarious. The show is loose, but never scattershot and Adlon's directing confidence is equally evident in how the camera navigates around the Fox home and in how well the entire series plays to the strengths of its actors.
Season four of Pamela Adlon’s FX series Better Things, created, directed by, and starring Adlon as an actress and a single mom raising three eccentric, steel-willed girls, boasts four episodes that are stone-cold classics, endlessly rewatchable and rewarding. The rest of the season is pretty good too — so nervy yet exact that it makes almost every other American TV show, even excellent ones, seem formulaic and timid in comparison.
The feeling of intimacy and empathy in the parenting scenes remains superb, particularly during a Sam/Max argument in one episode that involves every woman’s least favorite word. But it’s not a coincidence that both Sam and Better Things often seem lighter and happier when she gets some grown-up time, turning her gaze outward to learn about other people’s triumphs and heartbreaks.
Aside from a nagging sense that Sam and "Things" are standing in place. Inertia is part of the joke except that we think we already know the punchline. TV shows are about journeys too but through the early episodes, this one seems like it may be stuck in neutral.
They are fantastic moments with enough filler to bog the season down. Whilst still a must watch the magic is diluted and left with a above average season that pales to it's aforementioned achievements in its first three seasons
This season has lost me after I've been an avid watcher. The daughters are written meaner with each season...credit to the actors who portray Sam's daughters because they're believably mean...discredit to the writers for making me dislike them to the point I don't want to watch anymore. Switch the focus back to the adults and leave the kids in the background instead of making them smarter than the adults.