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United States of Tara on SHOWTIME

post #1 of 33
12/30/08 at 7:54pm
Thread Starter 
This is the new series premiering on Showtime at 10pm EST on January 18, 2009. It was created by Steven Spielberg and developed by screenwriter Diablo Cody and they both are executive producers on the series as well.

Quote:
In United States of Tara, Tara (Toni Collette) is a wife and mother of teenage children. The family of four, though, is anything but ordinary. Aside from the fact that her quirky, good-hearted son (Keir Gilchrist) has a crush on a boy in his film class and her troubled daughter (Brie Larson) struggles to locate boundaries with men, Tara has her own issues - she isn't always herself. Tara has dissociative identity disorder, meaning that when things get out of hand or beyond the amount of stress she can handle, Tara simply cannot help but alter one of her personalities, a trait that makes this family of misfits all the more bizarre and unattatched. John Corbett stars as Tara's hard-working and committed husband, and Rosemarie DeWitt stars as her lonely sister.

Tara has dissociative identity disorder and has four different personalities within herself, all vastly different.
  • Tara - Tara is a hard working mother of two who paints nursery room murals. She loves her family and often feels guilty for the frequent bizarre events she puts them through, and sometimes doesn't feel like herself.
  • Alice - Alice is the perfect homemaker who believes in good, traditional values. Alice bakes for the family and labels herself as old fashioned.
  • Buck - Buck is Tara's only male personality; he loves beer and he loves motorcycles, has a habit of getting into fights and enjoys outings to the titty bar during evenings.
  • T - T is a wild, pot smoking teenager who relates well to Tara's daughter and loves to get some action and has a habit of stealing from the drug store.
The first episode is available for viewing online here. Just click WATCH NOW and then enter tara as the password to start the video.
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post #2 of 33
12/30/08 at 7:59pm
Jesus Christ this sounds awful.
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post #3 of 33
12/30/08 at 8:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCallaghan View Post
Jesus Christ this sounds awful.
It's actually really good. Of course, you could have just took the half hour to watch the episode and found that out for yourself.
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post #4 of 33
12/30/08 at 8:58pm
Truth be told, it does sound awful. But I've heard the "really good" thing several times and I thought Juno's biggest problem was that other people saw it, so I'll definitely check it out.

Thing is, the concept allows itself to extreme suckage, so the idea that it's actually good makes it twice as interesting.
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post #5 of 33
12/30/08 at 9:00pm
Yeah the concept sounds shit - but Collette is a quite incredible actress so I'm sure she'll be able to make it work like gangbusters.

I'll definately give it a look.
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post #6 of 33
12/30/08 at 9:27pm
I liked it quite a bit, it was a lot better than I expected.
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post #7 of 33
12/30/08 at 10:37pm
It is pretty damn good so far. It has the clever Diablo Cody wit, but is a completely different tone than Juno. Toni Collette's going to win a shit ton of awards for this thing.
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post #8 of 33
12/30/08 at 10:48pm
So so so so so so good.
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post #9 of 33
1/10/09 at 6:37pm
Thread Starter 
Just watched the premiere again (this time in HD on The 101, DirecTV's exclusive channel, where it's airing regularly until the official premiere next weekend, so check your listings, satellite owners).

Was able to enjoy it a bit more this time on a bigger screen. Collette does a great job playing the different alters and Corbett and the two actors playing the kids do an admirable job keeping up with her.

Did the daughter's weirdo boyfriend remind anyone else of Joaquin Phoenix (from Parenthood era)? I thought he really did during the scene where he and the daughter were having a conversation about their mothers in the car.
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post #10 of 33
1/17/09 at 11:04am
Toni & Diablo on The View
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post #11 of 33
1/17/09 at 1:32pm
I thought that cast said "Joyce DeWitt" at first. I would have been there in an instant if that were the case. I'll probably still try and watch an episode, though.
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post #12 of 33
1/17/09 at 1:55pm
I have a no John Corbett policy.
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post #13 of 33
1/17/09 at 7:14pm
Saw it last night. Surprised how much I liked it!
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post #14 of 33
1/19/09 at 3:03am
It's definitely a series that'll better with more episodes, I think.

Premiere wasn't bad, though. Wish there was a little more of Tara, because as a stand alone character, she's very interesting.
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post #15 of 33
1/19/09 at 10:19am
I watched the first 2 episodes on demand, and I love it. Collette has always been one of my favorite actresses, well since Clockwatchers anyway, and this show is a treat to be able to see her play four characters so brilliantly.
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post #16 of 33
1/19/09 at 11:07am
Yeah, this is a winner, and Collette is fantastic. I also liked John Corbett, and the whole family actually -- I like that we're joining this in media res where the family is already used to the changing personalities as opposed to us coming in at the beginning and having to watch them deal with it then.
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post #17 of 33
1/19/09 at 11:13am
Yeah, the whole cast is great.
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post #18 of 33
1/19/09 at 8:20pm
The second episode is much better.

It's nice to see Tony Hale as someone other than Buster Bluth for once.
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post #19 of 33
1/19/09 at 11:58pm
Terrific opener. There are only 4 personalities? I'd love to see more.
But the whole family is great. Except the whore aunt!
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post #20 of 33
1/20/09 at 1:38am
I'd keep it to four. You don't want it to get too out of hand and have it end up like some kind of Tracey Ulman skit.

Are they going to show the episodes online or is the pilot going to be the only thing available?
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post #21 of 33
1/26/09 at 4:00pm
Really enjoying it so far, and was thrilled by the one-two punch of Tony Hale and Patton Oswalt.
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post #22 of 33
1/26/09 at 4:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Incorporeality View Post
Really enjoying it so far, and was thrilled by the one-two punch of Tony Hale and Patton Oswalt.
Awesome. I really enjoyed the first episode, and now I know these guys are in it I'm very excited about the second.
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post #23 of 33
1/26/09 at 4:13pm
Maybe Showtime is just teasing me and they're going to pull the plug after this episode, but it's worked the last two weekends for me on DirecTV. I usually only have HBO. Guess it could be a free month or something, or they've just bunched Showtime with HBO as it should be.
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post #24 of 33
2/1/09 at 5:39pm
I wasn't impressed by this at all. I really liked Collette, but the show as a whole didn't really gel for me. That's disappointing, because I loved Juno and like Diablo Cody. I need to see the episodes beyond the pilot, though.
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post #25 of 33
2/9/09 at 12:58pm
I didn't like the pilot or the second episode much, but the third and fourth episode were really charming and effective. I really liked how both episodes ended. I'm going to stick with it.
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post #26 of 33
2/10/09 at 8:57pm
I think this is really good, but only in relation to how bad tv usually is... Compared to the good HBO/Showtime episodic shows, this is pretty mediocre. Collette is great, though.
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post #27 of 33
2/10/09 at 9:40pm
whoops.
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post #28 of 33
2/11/09 at 7:09am
Only seen the pilot so far, but didn't like it at all. I was especially confused by this since it had been given such rave reviews from everyone on here.
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post #29 of 33
2/11/09 at 2:38pm
I'm loving this show so far, and definitely find it better than some stuff on Showtime (Californication, I'm looking at you). There's no way Toni Collette won't win every award there is for this.
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post #30 of 33
2/11/09 at 2:55pm
Yeah I'm liking it a lot. A show with a premise like this pretty much has limitless storyline potential, so it'll be interesting to see where they go with it. Just read on Cody's blog that it got picked up for another season.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Supremo View Post
I'm loving this show so far, and definitely find it better than some stuff on Showtime (Californication, I'm looking at you). There's no way Toni Collette won't win every award there is for this.

I'm a sucker for Californication, probably my favorite show that's on these days. I don't think there's a character on TV that makes me laugh as much as Hank Moody.
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post #31 of 33
3/26/09 at 7:57am
Just started watching this. Really enjoying it so far. I'm surprised it's not getting a little more love.

On the other hand Eastbound & Down is getting some pretty rave reviews on here and that show, despite some pretty fantastic lines, makes me cringe more often than not.
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post #32 of 33
4/6/09 at 12:36am
Season finale was tonight and it was really good. They threw in a surprising twist with Tara but I'm glad it brought the family together rather than driving Max away. I thought they would do more with the insane Barnabeez manager but I guess they didn't want to take too much away from what was going on with Tara.
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post #33 of 33
4/6/09 at 12:54am
I look forward to catching the rest of this on dvd.
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