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Cue the Sun!

 My favorite TV writing tends to have a moral center; the characters themselves may not behave in admirable ways, but the writer clearly has an interest in moral questions. I think the gold standard is Sharon Horgan, who wrote "Catastrophe." In that series, the male lead begins a kind of emotional affair; he isn't exactly guilty, but he isn't exactly innocent. The fallout from this affair becomes a high point of the series. 


Adam Goldman is a student of Sharon Horgan's; he cites her as a personal hero. The start of Goldman's series, "The Outs," is superficially focused on the absurdities of Brooklyn life. A delivery boy mocks a customer for being too lazy to walk across the street; a waiter must choose where to leave the bill while pretending that the two patrons in front of him are not loudly fighting. But beneath these moments there is a *moral* story. The main character, Jack, has lost a friend. He wants to re-recruit the friend. The specifics of this scenario--what was the horrible transgression? what can be surmounted (or not surmounted?)--will become the backbone of the show's first season.

Goldman's show debuted *before* Lena Dunham's show, and so it's understandable that Goldman dislikes being called "the gay Lena Dunham." I wish that Goldman would resurface. "The Outs" is a gem, and it didn't last long enough.
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