When it comes to the easy watch, also known as the lazy watch, also known as the happy watch, “Schitt’s Creek” is tops. Essentially, it’s a collection of talented comics doing their “Green Acres” shtick and killing it.
Catherine O’Hara is the focal point for me, because she is so brilliantly absurd as Moira Rose. It’s not just Moira’s dresses and wigs that make me laugh out loud as she prances and preens her way through every scene. It’s her grandiose manner of speaking, and the way the writers pander to her curious and unplaceable accent, her name-dropping, and her highfalutin language. After her husband, Eugene Levy’s John, tells her not to worry after she finds a cache of his old love letters, she says to him, “Easier said than done, John, when your only husband is longing for his epistle-writing inamorata.”
I also enjoy the way the writers have put both of the Rose kids — who started off as little more than upspeaking brats — with likable partners. Alexis is with a naïve veterinarian, and David is with his sweet business partner. This is an artfully frivolous show, and Alexis and David don’t need punishing so much as softening and lesson-learning.
But here’s the thing. When people ask me if they should binge the series on Netflix — and a few have asked recently, since the show is returning to Pop TV for its sixth and final season on Jan. 7 (It will hit Netflix after that run) — I usually tell them to jump in with season 4. That’s when the show begins to feel more layered and fully formed. Plus, it makes for a less daunting binge obligation.