In a measure of full disclosure I have to mention I have never seen Fleabag. I do know that swept the Emmy’s earlier this year but in the overabundance of streaming site, Prime has just fallen by the waste side as an extra pay service even if just for a month to steam everything and cancel. I bring this up because in every mention of Back to Life, everyone also mentions Fleabag, the two shows even share a producer. But I did like Hulu’s This Way Up which also got many Fleabag comparisons.
Since Fleabag won all the Best Comedy awards and This Way Up was pretty funny, I was expecting Back to Life to be humorous, but, it is not very funny at all. And I am not entirely sure if it was really supposed to be (British humour can be to us Yanks sometimes). The lead actress gives herself hideous bang early on and there is a lady cop hamming it up later in the season, but the laughs are far and few in between.
The subject matter is pretty heavy as the show revolves around who spent half her life in prison; she spent eighteen years there after being locked up when she was eighteen. And that is not the least of her parents problems as mom has been hooking up with a much younger man and poppa is oblivious to it all. Oh, and this being a small town so no one forgets what she did.
Except us the audience does not really know. Considering she spent almost two decades behind, it clearly is something serious. So really, Back to Life is much less a comedy as it is a mystery and breadcrumbs of what exactly happen through each of the six episode, the show is just delivered in the comedy like twenty-five minutes installments. I wish I knew this going in because going in thinking it was a comedy, I came away feeling very underwhelmed.
Back to Life airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime. Or if you just want to watch the show as a two hour and thirty minute movie, Showtime is releasing all six episodes at midnight this Sunday On Demand or via the Showtime Anytime app.
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