Shining Vale: Season One

November 29, 2022 11:15 AM - Season 1 (Full Season)

A dysfunctional family moves from the city to a small town after Patricia "Pat" Phelps (Courteney Cox) who became famous after writing a raunchy female empowerment novel, is caught cheating on her husband (Greg Kinnear). In an attempt to rebuild their family, they move into a spacious, but spooky old house in Connecticut. Nobody seems to suspect anything odd except for Pat, who is convinced she is either depressed or possessed.

Also starring Mira Sorvino, Gus Birney, Merrin Dungey, Dylan Gage, Alysia Reiner, Sherilynn Finn, Parvesh Cheena, Rob Morrow, Judith Light, and Adam Zastrow.

Created by Jeff Astrof & Sharon Horgan.

A Starz original series, with season one in eight half-hour episodes. Season two is in production.

posted by DirtyOldTown (2 comments total)

This was really fun and we watched the entire thing in two days.

Essentially, it's The Shining remade as a comedy series riffing on hysterical women and gaslighting tropes. If you enjoyed Horgan's series Catastrophe, the dialogue is right out of that, with Pat prone to foul-mouthed explanations of how much she dearly loves her stupid, useless fucking children.

Everyone is having a great time, Cox is a riot, Sorvino is a cutie-pie 50s housewife who still comes off menacing and weird, Kinnear plays the supportive husband as draining pain-in-the-ass, Gus Birney (as the trampy teenage daughter trying hard to go "churchy" in her new town) is a real find, and the script consistently finds weird directions to take things. (Your kid found porn in the woods? How about you and your kid's friend's dad go out there and check it out while you smoke a bunch of weed?)

There is a pair of matching scenes that sort of sums up the whole show. First, the one where it is explained to Pat that no matter how she feels about it, her shrink and her husband insist she go on serious meds for depression. Then later, when hubby Terry is seriously depressed and says blithely "I think I'll just try and push through" and the shrink shrugs and says "Sure, why not?"
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:23 AM on November 29, 2022

The first episode sells itself as horror - and does it pretty well!

Just started the second episode and it's a knee slapper!

Neat seeing Sherilyn Fenn! I have lots of !s for this show.

Great casting all around. Mira Sorvino! Gus Birney as Gaynor is a blast! Looking forward to seeing Alysia Reiner.
posted by porpoise at 5:19 PM on December 18, 2022