United States of Tara | |
---|---|
Genre | Comedy drama |
Created by | Diablo Cody |
Showrunners | Alexa Junge (season 1) Diablo Cody (season 2-3) Joey Soloway (season 2-3) |
Starring | |
Theme music composer | Tim DeLaughter |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 36 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers | Steven Spielberg Diablo Cody Alexa Junge (season 1) Joey Soloway (season 2–3) Darryl Frank Justin Falvey Craig Zisk (season 2–3) |
Producer | Dan Kaplow |
Production locations | Overland Park, Kansas (setting) Los Angeles, California (actual filming location) |
Camera setup | Single-camera |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production companies | DreamWorks Television Showtime Networks |
Original release | |
Network | Showtime |
Release | January 18, 2009 – June 20, 2011 |
United States of Tara is an American comedy drama television series created by Diablo Cody, which aired on Showtime from 2009 to 2011. The series follows the life of Tara (Toni Collette), a suburban artist and mother coping with dissociative identity disorder.
The series was based on an idea by Steven Spielberg, who is the executive producer, under his DreamWorks Television label. Other executive producers include writers Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, director Craig Zisk, and showrunners Cody and Joey Soloway. Former executive producer Alexa Junge quit as showrunner after the first season.
Principal photography took place in Los Angeles, California, while the show is set in Overland Park, Kansas. Collette won the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award and 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her role; the opening title sequence also won an Emmy. The show's third and final season premiered on March 28, 2011. [1]
On May 23, 2011, Showtime announced that the series would not be renewed for a fourth season, [2] and the series finale aired on June 20, 2011. [3]
The show is a representation of a seemingly typical American family who must cope with the daily struggles of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Tara Gregson is a wife and mother of two children in Overland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, who has been diagnosed with DID. Suffering side effects from the medication, she is depressed at her inability to focus, to feel, to be intimate, to create art, and to progress in therapy to discover the painful source of her dissociation. With approval from her therapist, she discontinues the medication, knowing that multiple personalities will reemerge. [4] [5]
When stressed, Tara may transition into one of her alters: wild and flirty teenager T; 1950s style housewife Alice; and male, loud, beer-drinking Vietnam vet Buck. A fourth alter, Gimme, is introduced later in the first season. During the second season, two further personalities are introduced: Shoshana, Tara's therapist of sorts, and Chicken, an infantile representation of Tara when she was five years old. Another alter emerges in Season 3, that of Tara's previously unknown half-brother Bryce. Tara is supported by her husband Max, daughter Kate, and son Marshall. Her sister, Charmaine, is not very supportive of Tara, expressing doubts about the validity of her sister's disorder, though she becomes increasingly more understanding and receptive as the series progresses. [4] [5]
The show was conceived by executive producer Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw, while discussing the compartmentalization of the typical human psyche. The staff members were challenged with making a comedy show that is counteracted by the unknowable but believable anguish of severe mental illness. They wanted a widely relatable story of fragmentation of the self, and of the loving perseverance of the family. Executive producer Alexa Junge said, "It never comes from making fun of a woman who can't control herself." Series creator Diablo Cody said she was "nervous" about making the pilot funny but not a sitcom, while being sensitive to a mental disorder. Therefore, the disorder was researched and then the scripts were reviewed by dissociative identity disorder expert and medical school professor, Richard Kluft. [5]
Portia Doubleday was cast as Kate in the pilot episode of United States of Tara. Doubleday was replaced by Brie Larson when the series' creative team chose to go in a different direction with the character. [6]
Diablo Cody didn't expect the pilot to reach series status, so she considered "three seasons in the lion's den" to be exceptional. She emphatically appreciated the writers, but was pressured with the expectation of writing more "gobbledygook banter" as seen in her recent hit movie Juno ; she disliked the institution of the writers' room and wished that it had been primarily a solo effort. She said Steven Spielberg was "incredibly involved", offering "his soul and his input" to the series. She was sad to learn of the cancellation especially without a proper finale, but was fairly satisfied with "a nice, natural end". [7]
The series premiered on the US network Showtime on January 18, 2009. On February 10, 2009, after only four episodes had aired, Showtime Networks president of entertainment Robert Greenblatt announced that United States of Tara would be renewed for a second season, to consist of twelve episodes and air in early 2010. He said the early renewal decision came after the show averaged 2.67 million viewers per week, giving the network its highest ratings since 2004, when Nielsen Media Research began counting original shows on premium channels in its prime time ratings. [8] Season two premiered on March 22, 2010. [9]
On March 25, three days after the season 2 premiere, it was announced that it would be picked up for a third season which aired in spring 2011. [10] Season 3 officially premiered on March 28, 2011. [1] On May 23, 2011, it was announced that the series would not be renewed for a fourth season. [2]
Critical response to the show was positive, with many reviewers praising Collette's acting. According to Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the show's first season holds a score of 63 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews", based on 24 reviews. Season 2 has 79% with 10 reviews, and Season 3 has 84% ("universal acclaim") with 5 reviews. [11]
Troy Patterson of Slate gave high praise to Diablo Cody's infamous style of snarky pop-culture dialog, and to the cast, concluding that "The most elusive of the personalities is Tara herself, and that's as it should be." [4] Emily Nussbaum of Vulture saw Tara as "the true sister act" to Dexter , Showtime's other hit show at the time, with a more feminine focus on the allegorical roots of mental illness. She said it "has slowly taken its premise deeper, bolder places than I ever expected, all while maintaining an arch-comic tone that could sour if it weren’t so smart. Far more ambitious than bloated award bait like Boardwalk Empire , it has become a truly original series, a dark comedy about sexual abuse, swinging at existential questions about its heroine's struggle to become a real girl." [12] Alan Sepinwall of HitFix said that Tara has "gotten deeper, darker and just plain better as it's gone along" where sometimes "the Gregson family seems in danger of splintering as badly as Tara's psyche". [13]
In a 2014 retrospective, Ariana Bacle at Entertainment Weekly said that she was "still not over" the show's premature cancellation. She said the show portrays mental illness in a realistic, humanizing, and normalizing way that gives appropriate weight to the lives of all the family members who were overwhelmed but not totally consumed by one's mental illness. She found it "dark" but "consistently funny, never taking itself too seriously". She praised Toni Collette's "flawless" transition between personalities that are so multilayered yet "insanely distinct" that they could have each been a different actor. [14]
Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2009 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series | Toni Collette | Won [15] |
Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series | Allison Jones, Cami Patton and Elizabeth Barnes | Nominated [15] | ||
Outstanding Main Title Design | Jamie Caliri, Dave Finkel, Brett Baer and Alex Jukasz | Won [15] | ||
Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music | Tim Delaughter | Nominated [15] | ||
2010 | Golden Globe Award | Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy | Toni Collette | Won |
Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series | Toni Collette | Nominated [15] | |
Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series | Cami Patton and Jennifer Lare | Nominated [15] | ||
Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series | Toni Collette | Nominated | |
GLAAD Media Award | Outstanding Comedy Series | Nominated | ||
2011 | Golden Globe Award | Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy | Toni Collette | Nominated |
DVD Name | Release Date | No. of episodes | Additional Content |
---|---|---|---|
The First Season | 12 |
| |
The Second Season |
| 12 |
|
The Third and Final Season |
| 12 |
Episodes 1 and 2 are available as bonus features on DVD disc 4 (of 4) of Season 3 of Dexter , and on disc 4 (of 4) of Season 3 of The Tudors .
In Australia, United States of Tara was rated MA 15+, and in New Zealand, it was rated R13 for offensive language and sexual references.
Dissociative fugue, formerly called a fugue state or psychogenic fugue, is a rare psychiatric phenomenon characterized by reversible amnesia for one's identity in conjunction with unexpected wandering or travel. This is sometimes accompanied by the establishment of a new identity and the inability to recall personal information prior to the presentation of symptoms. Dissociative fugue is a mental and behavioral disorder that is classified variously as a dissociative disorder, a conversion disorder, and a somatic symptom disorder. It is a facet of dissociative amnesia, according to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).
Toni Collette is an Australian actress. Known for her work in television and independent films, she has received various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and five AACTA Awards, with nominations for an Academy Award and a Tony Award.
Pamela Suzette Grier is an American actress and singer. Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema's first female action star, she achieved fame for her starring roles in a string of 1970s action, blaxploitation and women in prison films for American International Pictures and New World Pictures. Her accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award.
Brook Maurio, known professionally as by the pen name Diablo Cody, is an American writer and producer. She gained recognition for her candid blog and subsequent memoir, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper (2005). Cody received critical acclaim for her screenwriting debut film, Juno (2007), winning both the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Merritt Carmen Wever is an American actress. She played perennially upbeat young nurse Zoey in Nurse Jackie (2009–2015), an intrepid widow in the Netflix period miniseries Godless (2017) and a detective investigating a serial rapist in the Netflix crime miniseries Unbelievable (2019).
Flipper is an American revival television series of the original 1964 Flipper television series. The first two seasons aired in first-run syndication; seasons three and four aired on the PAX network.
Keir David Peters Gilchrist is a Canadian actor. On television, he portrayed Marshall Gregson on the Showtime comedy-drama United States of Tara (2009–2011) and headlined the Netflix comedy-drama Atypical (2017–2021). His film roles include the comedy-drama It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010) and the supernatural horror It Follows (2014). Outside of his acting career, Gilchrist is the vocalist of grindcore band Whelm and death metal band Phalanx.
Alexa Junge is an American television writer, producer and screenwriter. Her work on Friends, from 1994 to 1999, earned her nominations for three Emmy Awards.
Haaz Sleiman is a Lebanese actor. He most notably played the role of Tarek in the 2007 film The Visitor for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male and the role of Jesus in the American TV mini-series Killing Jesus, in addition to a number of American TV series.
Rita Ann Morgan is a fictional character created by Jeff Lindsay for his book series about a vigilante serial killer named Dexter Morgan. She also appeared in the television series Dexter, based on Lindsay's books. She was the girlfriend and later wife of Dexter in both media. Portrayed by Julie Benz, Rita was a series regular in the first four seasons. The character made her last television appearance in 2010; she was a special guest star in Dexter's season five opener entitled "My Bad". The character appeared in seven of the eight Dexter novels.
Nurse Jackie is an American medical comedy-drama television series that aired on Showtime from June 8, 2009, to June 28, 2015. Set in New York City, the series follows Jackie Peyton, a drug-addicted emergency department nurse at the fictional All Saints' Hospital.
Hawthorne is an American medical drama television series created by John Masius. It starred Jada Pinkett Smith and Michael Vartan and premiered on TNT on June 16, 2009. On September 16, 2010, it was announced that Hawthorne had been renewed for a third season consisting of ten episodes. The season premiered on June 14, 2011, and ended on August 16, 2011.
Portia Doubleday is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Sheeni Saunders in the film Youth in Revolt (2009), Chris Hargensen in the film Carrie (2013), and as Angela Moss in the USA Network television drama Mr. Robot (2015–2019).
Shameless is an American comedy drama television series developed by John Wells that aired on Showtime from January 9, 2011, to April 11, 2021. It is an adaptation of Paul Abbott's British series of the same name and features an ensemble cast led by William H. Macy and Emmy Rossum. The series is set in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois.
Web Therapy is an American comedy television series that premiered on Showtime on July 19, 2011. It is based on the web series of the same name and stars Lisa Kudrow as Fiona Wallice, a therapist who works with patients over the Internet.
Tully is a 2018 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman, written by Diablo Cody, and starring Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Mark Duplass, and Ron Livingston. The film follows the friendship between a mother of three and her night nanny. It is the third collaboration between director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody, following the films Juno (2007) and Young Adult (2011), the latter of which also starred Theron.
Flatbush Misdemeanors is an American comedy television series created by Kevin Iso and Dan Perlman. It is based on Iso and Perlman's 2017 digital series of the same name. In October 2020, it was given a straight-to-series order by Showtime. The series premiered on May 23, 2021. In August 2021, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on June 19, 2022. In September 2022, the series was canceled after two seasons.