What is 'Call me Kat', the new series by Mayim Bialik after 'The big bang theory'

What is 'Call me Kat', the new series by Mayim Bialik after 'The big bang theory'

On HBO Max

All 13 episodes of the first season are available

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Pere Solà Gimferrer

Barcelona

HBO Max's content platform is one mystery after another. Viewers can expect We're here to appear in the catalog once and for all, as OC, the new season of Love life or the latest episodes of The sex life of college girls should. But, instead, what appears is a series called Call me Kat with the thirteen episodes of its first season and Mayim Bialik as its main attraction after the success achieved with The big bang theory.

In the series, Bialik plays Kat, a 39-year-old woman with zero fashion sense, very little emotional and sexual experience, and who owns a cafeteria where the stars are the cats that wander around the local. Her mother (Swoosie Kurtz) may be compulsively dating her and treating her like a loser for being single, but she's more than happy with her life, which centers around joking around with the bartenders at her bar (Leslie Jordan and Kyla Pratt) and flirting with college crush (Cheyenne Jackson).

Starting point

Bialik plays Kat, a 39-year-old woman with zero interest in buying clothes, very little experience in sentimental and sexual terms, and who flirts every day with the platonic love of college

Call me Kat can be considered somewhat of an oddity for US television. It is a traditional sitcom, yes, but one of the attractions is that Bialik constantly breaks the fourth wall, looking at the camera and confessing his thoughts to the public, a resource that was already in Miranda, the BBC format on which it is based and Created by Miranda Hart.

What is 'Call me Kat', Mayim Bialik's new series after 'The big bang theory'

The striking thing about Miranda was the success it achieved in the United Kingdom among critics and audiences with easy jokes, positive characters, confessions on camera, Hart (who measures 1.85) smacking himself every couple of scenes and episode endings where the actors greeted the public. She was as nice as she was funny. It took the Bafta for best comedy, Miranda Hart became one of the hottest comedians and actor Tom Ellis, who played her romantic interest, moved to Hollywood to play Lucifer.

While this unlikely cocktail worked wonders on the BBC, the same can't be said for the American version. The sense of humor is very white, Mayim Bialik can be a good comedy actress but here she runs into slapstick, and neither she nor the direction have the ability to integrate the daily statements of the protagonist with ease. Everything seems so calculated that the most refreshing element of Miranda is lost: the sensation of witnessing a play by some friends wanting to have a good time (and with a few shots of tequila on top).

That yes, although Call me Kat is bad, there is something laudable in wanting to write a series so correct, so neat, so good, so harmless, that it wants to be so clearly a happy place for the audience. The problem is that the fundamental elements of a work can be copied, but its essence cannot necessarily be copied. Tell Gus Van Sant or in this case Bialik and Darlene Hunt, responsible for the adaptation script.

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