Real mixed bag. I feel like Enlightened its age more than most other shows from the time because the cultural understanding & discussion of both therapy and corporate greed have changed a lot since it came out. I like how sincere it is, though, and there are some moments of genuine emotional clarity in a way that not many other shows allow themselves to engage with.
Unfortunately, the ways it tries to be a comedy are the weakest elements. Having the characters get harassed & degraded is really hard to watch & I think there's a clearer cultural understanding now that the sort of behavior shown by the managers here should be called out & can lead to intervention or lawsuits. Laura Dern plays her really well, but Amy is set up to be way more naïve than I can find believable, even in a workplace sitcom (which this isn't really). I'm not sure if it's because of the perception of New Age-y spiritual people at the time or for the sake of comedy but her character trying to be woke but failing because of incompetence & pettiness & failure to actually understand the things she's mad about just drags everything down & slows down the pace of the show. (she still has the right ideas & goals in the end, but it's baffling that she can identify the company's mistreatment of its workers & the environment, but is presented as being completely incapable of presenting that information to anyone without flying off the handle - maybe it's supposed to be a Mike Judge style smart-but-socially-incompetent character? but she's also set up as being capable of self reflection and in her mind as well as the show's intro/outro narration demonstrates a level of emotional intelligence that just isn't present most of the times she's actually interacting with people). It's frustrating because there's a lot of interesting stuff going on here, but the show is almost actively painful to watch.
Shout by rnhaasBlockedParent2024-06-01T13:49:31Z
This is a moderately amusing satire of modern concepts of Wellness and recovery and the like, along with a satire of corporate America. The best satires are ones where you cannot tell all the time whether or not it’s a satire, and I strongly believe that.
But I’m not sure that’s the problem here. I think the problem here is whether or not White has the balls to make his characters the butt of the satire. I think sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn’t. See, there’s an earnestness here that I think undermines the satire at times and I cannot always tell whether or not the show is sincere in its satire or sincere in its message that attitude can make a world of difference.
And it’s because of what I feel is this mixed message, and because I didn’t laugh as much as I hoped, that I will not be watching future seasons unless somebody I know is absolutely raving about them.