ShamelessTV Show 2011
Families can talk about alcoholism and the real-life consequences of substance abuse. How does this affect families, particularly those with children? Does the show handle the topic responsibly and/or realistically?
ShamelessTV Show | 2011
As crazy as those last few seasons of Shameless were, Showtime's family dramedy about a deadbeat dad (William H. Macy) and the six children he loved to forget about is easy to miss. The series had plenty of ups and downs over the years, but when it was good it was really good. Shameless is available to watch (or rewatch, we would never judge) in its entirety on Netflix, but if you're looking for a new show to fill the void, we have some suggestions.
Whether you love Shameless for its focus on its core dysfunctional family, its depiction of existence as a poor person in America, the jokes, the tears, or even if you were only checking in to see what happened to Ian (Cameron Monaghan) and Mickey (Noel Fisher), this list has something every kind of fan will enjoy watching next. Here are some shows you should check out.
Jeremy Allen White heads back to Chicago in this dark dramedy set at the Original Beef of Chicagoland, a flailing, old-school sandwich joint. White plays Carmy, an experienced chef with a background in French cooking who is left in charge of the restaurant after the death of his brother. The series moves at a breakneck pace and operates at an Uncut Gemsian stress level as Carmy's attempts to rehabilitate the Original Beef's kitchen and keep the business afloat are met with hostility from the staff, but it's also a thoughtfully messy exploration of grief, capitalism, and fractured family dynamics. Think of this as a show about what would've happened if Lip had gone into the culinary industry instead of the torturous path Shameless sent him down.
If you miss the early days of Shameless, which largely centered on Fiona's (Emmy Rossum) struggles to raise her siblings on her own while also trying to keep the Gallagher family financially afloat, you'll definitely appreciate Maid. The miniseries centers around Alex (Margaret Qualley), a single mother who escapes an abusive relationship and gets a job as a housecleaner in Washington to support herself and her young daughter. Although the show is billed as a dramedy, it definitely leans more into the dram of it all than Shameless, but the shows are alike in the ways they show the toll living below the poverty line takes on people, and how poor people are marginalized while serving the rich. Plus, Qualley gives a knockout performance.
Did you know Shameless was originally based on a British show of the same name? Yup, there's a whole other unhinged Gallagher family in the U.K. you can acquaint yourself with. But aside from character names, their portrayals of poverty, and both shows having essentially identical first seasons, the British Shameless is very much its own separate animal. The series, which also ran for 11 seasons, is set in Manchester instead of Chicago, and takes its characters to places fans of the American adaptation probably wouldn't recognize; the character of Karen Jackson (played here by Rebecca Atkinson) is a much bigger, longer-lasting presence in this Shameless, while Fiona (Anne-Marie Duff) and Steve (a pre-international fame James McAvoy) depart after the second season. It's a completely different series that deals with completely different themes, but it was pretty highly acclaimed in the U.K. and is worth a watch for die-hard fans who are curious about the roots of Shameless.
Toni Collette gives one of the best, and most underrated, performances of her career as Tara, a wife and mother with dissociative identity disorder who frequently transitions between her multiple personalities, which include a prim '50s housewife named Alice, a brash Vietnam war veteran named Buck, and a flirty teenager named T. The show is sensitive about Tara's increasing frustration with her alters and her complicated feelings about frequently losing and regaining control of her mind and body, as well as the impact it has on her family. There are echoes of both Frank (William H. Macy) and Monica (Chloe Webb) in Tara, and it's not hard to find parallels between the ways her kids, Kate (a pre-Marvel Brie Larson) and Marshall (Keir Gilchrist), struggle to balance their acceptance of their mother's condition with their desire for a "normal" family, and the ways the Gallaghers have learned to process their parents' failures over the years.
While Shameless has been rightfully criticized for its almost entirely white cast, despite being set in the largely Black South Side of Chicago, The Chi seeks to put a spotlight on the community Shameless tends to ignore. The show begins after a homicide shakes up a South Side neighborhood, telling a series of interconnected stories about how tragedy can unite people. It has character types that will feel familiar to any Shameless fan, from Kevin (Alex Hibbert), a pre-teen forced to grow up too quickly, to Jada (Yolanda Ross), a working mom struggling to figure out who she is beyond motherhood, to Emmett (Jacob Latimore), Jada's son who is about to become a teen dad. There's also a lot of heart in this show, and it tells really complex stories about identity, LGBTQ+ issues, and the American justice system with thoughtful sensitivity.
I can only hope that one day we as a society give Six Feet Under the energy we give that other classic HBO drama about all those dudes in the mob. In any case, Alan Ball's series follows the lives of the Fisher family, who take over the Los Angeles funeral home that was left to them by their recently deceased father. You may or may not know that Six Feet Under is best remembered for its iconic series finale sequence, but most everything that happens before that is incredible too. The Fisher family is dysfunctional and troubled, and the show is unique for its willingness to have frank, complicated discussions about the many facets of dying and grief. Like Shameless, Six Feet Under is also interested in the idea that kids are doomed to become their parents, and the ways they struggle to fight against it in preservation of their own identities. Plus, for those of us who tune into each new episode of Shameless hoping to get another development in the enduring Ian/Mickey saga, Six Feet Under has its own version of that dynamic with David (Michael C. Hall) and Keith (Mathew St. Patrick), who have their own dramatic, long-term relationship that the show takes its time exploring. While you should probably know before going in that this one is pretty dark (each episode literally begins with a different death), don't let that deter you from watching. It's something special.
Oh, to spend an hour inside Danny McBride's mind. The actor-comedian created, co-stars, writes, and directs this series about the Gemstones, an internationally famous televangelist family working to expand their network of megachurches. McBride plays Jesse, the pompous eldest son of Eli (John Goodman), lead pastor at the family's "Salvation Center," while Adam DeVine and Edi Patterson co-star as Jesse's younger siblings. Together, they're a maladjusted family unit, tightly knit out of necessity and working overtime to preserve their own best interests. The show is a great satire of the sinister undercurrent of televangelism, and it's full of McBride's specific brand of big, broad comedy, which anyone who delights in watching Frank's scheme of the week on Shameless will surely appreciate.
The premise of Good Girls kind of sounds like a scrapped Shameless plotline: Christina Hendricks, Mae Whitman, and Retta star as three working-class suburban moms exhausted by the never-ending struggle to make ends meet who decide to take control of their lives by robbing a local grocery store. They pull it off, but that's not the end of the story. It's the aftermath of the crime that Good Girls is interested in, and the different ways the women react to it, such as Beth's (Hendricks) realization that life as a criminal is preferable to life as a mother struggling to pay the bills. The desperate ways the trio attempt to keep their involvement in the heist a secret are like mini callbacks to the earlier, sillier days of Shameless, like when Debbie (Emma Kenney) was still stealing neighborhood babies and Frank was escaping debts by forcing his kids to throw him fake funerals. Good Girls is the kind of show that gets more fun to watch as the characters get in more trouble, so buckle up.
Actress Emmy Rossum takes part in a panel discussion for the show "Shameless" at the CBS and Showtime portion of the 2011 Winter Press Tour for the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, California, January 14, 2011. REUTERS/Gus Ruelas
HBO says the show set a record for streaming viewers of an HBO premiere on HBO Max, which bears out via the Nielsen on-air numbers: Both The Undoing (676,000 viewers) and Lovecraft Country (760,000) had bigger on-air viewership than the 548,000 for The Nevers.
American Idol was the top entertainment show in primetime Sunday, with a 0.8 in the 18-49 demographic and 6.09 million viewers. A day earlier, Saturday Night Live led all of primetime and late night with a 1.04 in the key ad demo and 5.18 million viewers. 041b061a72