United States of Tara


Marshall and homemaker Alice 'Make mine a Sea Breeze'

I found out about this show on AfterElton , so as I like lead actress Toni Collette and the premise that the show included a gay son Marshall played by Keir Gilchrist . I thought I'd give it a watch. . In short the premise is how Tara ( Toni Collette ) copes with having multiple personalities and the impact this has on her life with her family . At first I found the randomness of how many of her personalities visited the show a bit distracting . Although I guess given it was the pilot they wanted to show as many of the other personalities as possible and how the other characters interacted or coped with them . Certainly Toni Collete embodies all the characters with a sense of believability , but if I was her husband Max the lovely John Corbett I'd would have been out of there in a second . But the lovely John in his laconic delivery says I've been married to this for 15 years etc '' give the man a medal .

Saint John

Her children react to their mums personalities differently . Her daughter Kate (Brie Larson) loves hanging with ''T' a sort of bratty horny rebel teen rebel , her son Marshall the movie , cake baking teen has to endure cracks at his sexuality when mum morphs into her trucker personality named 'Buck' . As a character Marshall's a lot less out there than say the musical and fashion loving Justin from Ugly Betty ,but just as interesting  with his home baking in the kitchen .

I'm not sure seeing all these different personalities will become kinda tiresome week after week , maybe it depends how much you like the personalities and we have yet to meet homemaker Alice and her perfect backing . If you compare The United States of Tara to recent Brit comedy 'Life of Riley ' swishy haired Taylor Fawcett excluded , then Showtimes new comedy is a gem indeed.