‘Work In Progress’ Season 1 Review: Abby McEnany does a brilliant job at bringing us radical yet lovable series
When ‘Work In Progress’ was announced and about to drop on primetime network, we could already see how interesting the show would turn out to be. As is with most first impressions, the preview was enough for us to get a peek into what we could expect from the Chicago improv mainstay. But little did we know that by the time the first season wraps up, our experience is going to surpass our very own expectations.
For starters, it is incredible writing, packed with witty, daily-life humor, making you feel a sense of belonging and warmth that most shows these days (especially dramas) tend to lack. Yes, it’s radical; it’s about a very niche segment of society, calling for a niche audience. But if you segregate sexuality and personality types and see each character for the person they are and not their orientation, you will see a lot more than what meets the eye.
‘Work In Progress’ intelligently mines comedy with pressing and pertinent social issues like body shaming, mental health, trans-literacy, gender conformity, and so on. Again, as we said before, it’s radical in its own right and yet Abby’s hilarious take in her neurotic way, makes it worth sitting through every Sunday night and spending that precious half-an-hour with her and her co-stars. Celeste Pechous and Theo Germaine equally shine in their own characters, making us forget that we are actually going through the lives of a lesbian and a trans-man (dating a lesbian). Sounds quite complicated when you put it like that, doesn’t it? But it’s much simpler. That’s what Abby McEnany proves episode after episode. While her character and her life are complex to the hilt and beyond most people’s comprehension, even if they are her partners, the story is quite easy to grasp.
While there are other shows about the LGBTQ community out there who have made their ways to the television and quite successfully so, there’s something unique about ‘Work In Progress’. Behind all the drama and all the negativity of her character, Abby McEnany proves herself to be a writer who loves herself and wants to put herself out there for the world to know why her character does what she does. And she does it all confidently, even if it’s being neurotic and OCD driven.
Self-loathing and self-deprecation are processes that one needs to go through to be able to truly love yourself. While the first season might be just about exploring Abby’s self-hatred and futile attempts to be a perfectionist, it paves the way for a new and improved Abby in the next season, as the show leaves a promise at the end of the season finale.
And talking about the narrator, McEnany is brilliant in navigating through the topics and angles of a ‘queer life’ which would otherwise seem heavy or complex. And she does that aesthetically through a well-laid out script, and not to mention an on-screen performance that flows smoothly throughout the season. She has worked hard enough to make her character not desirable in the story, but that only made the show more likable to us.
Most first-timers on television would be overwhelmed at creating, producing, and acting on the screen for the first time and somewhere, the efforts would show in their performance. But not with McEnany. She nailed her multi-tasker role and gave us a reason to look forward to every Sunday night.
While we are done with the first installment of ‘Work In Progress’, there’s promise of a second season and we cannot wait to see what’s next as Abby comes back with a new chapter of her story.
Meanwhile, if you have not caught up with the first season, you surely have missed out on a very creative work and you can catch it if there are reruns coming up.