Not much happens in Somebody Somewhere (Sky Comedy), but don’t let that deceive you. This comedy is a stealthy new arrival that doesn’t shout about its charms, but rather lets them unfurl steadily, with surprising beauty. It drops us into the life of Sam (Bridget Everett), a woman in her 40s who has recently moved back to her home town of Manhattan – not that one, Manhattan, Kansas. She returned to take care of her dying sister, but now that her sister is gone, she finds herself stuck, purposeless and lonely.
There is a telltale colour palette to comedies like this, washed out and pale, a sign that the comedy label should be in inverted commas. Like Better Things, Work in Progress and Mrs Fletcher, this is more “if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry” than slapstick-punchline, laugh-track funny; anyone expecting a straightforward gag may need to look elsewhere. Everett plays Sam as lost and weary. She has a morbidly silent job marking exam papers, and the closest person to her now is her niece, Shannon, much to the dismay of Shannon’s mother. The first episode involves some scene-setting: Sam’s mother drinks too much, and her surviving sister is a pressure-cooker of emotions. Life is not so bad that it is harrowing, but the monotony is wearing Sam down. When Sam meets Joel at work, a hint of brightness begins to return to her life.
