On July 24, Showtime cancelled the dark comedy series HAPPYish after only one season, continuing the TV traditional of prematurely cancelling programmes that offer provocative political content to a wide public (such as Better Off Ted and Benched). HAPPYish explored the oppressive nature of work under capitalism while showing how our present social, political, and economic context allows for the reproduction of a deeply flawed system.

HAPPYish is a show about a nuclear family’s attempts to manage to maintain some level of happiness in a socio-political environmentt that, despite their economic privilege, seems structured to make them unhappy. The main character, Thom Payne is named after the American revolutionary Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet Common Sense railed against the oppression of British Rule. Like his namesake, the character of Thom rails against oppression, but the modern, ubiquitous oppression of work under capitalism, particularly work that is neither personally fulfilling nor socially valuable.

For Thom, this work is in advertising. Our protagonist deals with the threat of being fired as younger and hipper advertisers begin reshaping his agency. Their way of doing advertising is far too edgy and postmodern for his sensibilities. But beyond that he also understands the pointlessness of his job more generally. The show lambasts consumerism and attacks advertising culture. In excellent satirical fashion the show features advertising execs applauding the speed and efficiency of new ‘brands’ such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. The show even features a meeting where Coca Cola is disappointed by the advertising agency’s idea for an ‘insurgency’ advertising campaign but is gets won over by the agency’s big pitch: become an ‘uber brand’ like the Nazi Party;

The show’s social commentary expands to the investigation of managing ‘work/life balance’. Thom’s wife, Lee is an artist who is unable to spend time quietly working, instead being dragged into an endless role of ‘mother’ even when her son is at school. This theme demonstrates a kind of institutionalized perpetual unhappiness in which our various social ‘roles’ expand beyond their socially valuable purpose but nevertheless structure our lives. The characters in the show are left with limited means of overcoming such constraints on their mission to be happy. They either self-medicate or they engaged in conspicuous consumption. While the family at the heart of the show is depicted as the black sheep of society that rebel against social norms, their short-term solutions to institutional problems are those the majority in post-industrial society turn to: drugs and consumerism. What the show really demonstrates however is that consumer goods (such as the Ipad Thom buys for his son out of guilt despite hating Apple and what it stands for or the prescription Xanax Lee takes despite her aversion to big pharma) only serves to dull the pain of institutional oppression.

It is not hard to see that such ‘solutions’ to institutional problems are not only mere bandages covering severe wounds, but solutions available only the relatively wealthy and privileged. The show does explore this idea of privilege, allowing its commentary on social problems to be amplified: even the upper-middle classes can suffer from the system that is in place, even if the system benefits them relative to the disadvantaged classes. There’s no sense that if you are poorer than the characters, their wealth alone will make you happy. This perspective develops a subtext in the show that suggests that our jobs are socially useless and our social institutions are not operating in ways that benefit the individuals that make up society.

Thom’s instinct is to rebel. Throughout the first season Thom wants to stop working “for Satan” and became a writer. The show creates realistic challenges to quitting: one employee who has been laid off commits suicide; Thom has additional responsibilities that make it financially difficult to quit; realistic opportunities for doing personally gratifying or socially useful occupations are limited.

In what could easily be a paraphrasing of Noam Chomsky, Thom states, “You gotta hand it to Stalin. He didn’t fuck around. When he wanted to control you, he threw you in the Gulag or shot you in the head. Nowadays, they give you a 30-year mortgage. They give you an auto loan, credit card bills, and a Graco convertible crib with three-position mattress adjustment and a one-year limited warranty.”

As this dark comedy unfolds we are hit by the reality of its message: with everything capitalism gives us, it takes something else away. Often the happiness that came with what we received from the economic system is superseded by the unhappiness generated in the process, even for its consumers – let alone the producers. This is what the show depicts as the “Yay/Fuck” cycle. You get a new car: Yay! But now you have to work to pay off the loan: Fuck! Although the cycle continues, the ‘Yays’ seem to provide enough ideological cover that we forget about the ‘Fucks’ that proceed, playing the same game all over again.

While the show did an excellent job of critiquing social and economic institutions, solutions depicted in the show are not institutional in scope. There is no sense of hope in the show, a hope that could be rooted in a transformation to a participatory society, a restructuring of the economic system, and the power of social movements. Instead the show’s characters are left isolated. They call for an alien spaceship to take them to their home planet because they feel so out of place in this world. The show reverts to metaphors about the evolution of man and innate qualities that prevent us from being able to achieve an alternative.

The show’s lack of hope became a significant factor in negative reviews it received from critics. A show with as much biting critique of capitalism but a sign of hope that could have been developed throughout the show may have been better received by both critics and audiences alike. While it may be helpful to take a step back from our own lives and see the ‘Yay/Fuck’ cycle play out elsewhere before we understand its structural nature, a show that does not give us serious hope only serves as its own ‘Yay/Fuck’ cycle:

Finally a show that exposes the social realities that keep even the relatively privileged oppressed: Yay!

But although we now see the social nature of the problem, we still cannot do anything about it: Fuck!