The excellence of Season 1 of Transparent

Season 1 of Transparent is terrific all the way through, funny, sexy, insightful, and moving - never exploitative or other the top. It's a show that many probably overlook because they expect all the wrong things, something lurid and sensational, and this fine series never cheapens itself with easy laughs or sight gags. It's really a subtle and credible examination of family life and sexuality and conventional attitudes toward the varieties of sexual experience and how these attitudes are changing, evolving - over the long term and under immediate temporal pressures. Jill Soloway, writer, director, creator of the series, deserves a lot of credit, ditto up and down the cast with of course special notice for Jeffrey Tambor in a very challenging lead role as Maura. Great episodes and scenes all across the last 5 episodes of the season, but of special note the episode entirely in 1994 flashback (each episode has some flashbacks to that period, when the family's life began to change as the father becomes increasingly open about his desire to trans) at which Maura (then Mark) and friend Ed surreptitiously visit a summer camp for cross-dressers - we really feel the pain he lives with leading a double life, the dinner table blowup when Maura movingly apologizes for not being more forthcoming with his son-in-law but stating simply that he's just a person with struggles and suffering of his own, the terrific shiva scenes in the final episode of the season with a big reveal about Josh's past - and a troubling break-up with the very winning rabbi who seemed at last to bring Josh out of his narcissism. Lots of open issues, nothing fully resolved, lots of complex emotions and ambiguity, as in life.