From midair, a golf ball soars down onto the fat belly of a man dozing on an air mattress in a swimming pool. Another wayward golf ball smashes into a picnic table. In the 10-episode series "Terminal City," these tiny suburban disruptions are fallout from Katie Sampson's diagnosis. Upon learning she has breast cancer, the mother of three has taken to her backyard to thwack a few angry shots into the ether. Clutching her club, her pigtails perversely tight, she looks like a demented golf pro.
'Terminal City' takes risks with cancer, family, and fame
"Terminal City," premiering tonight at 9 on the Sundance Channel, is a humorous drama about cancer, which is always a risky proposition. Only a confident, elastic piece of work can comfortably encompass both whimsical golf balls and malignant tumors, family hijinks and traumatic hospital procedures. And based on the first two episodes, "Terminal City" has a solid 80 percent success rate. For every precious joke that turns Katie’s life into a clichéd David E. Kelley dramedy, the show has a few clever and unexpectedly touching moments that move it more to the "Six Feet Under" end of the comedy spectrum. At its best, it’s droll, absurdist, psychologically astute, and moving.
"Terminal City" first ran in Canada in 2005, and Sundance has wisely picked it up for a reairing. This is the kind of bold little TV show that the networks should have been looking for during their more desperate writers'-strike moments, rather than, say, "My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad." Indeed, "Terminal City" takes ongoing swipes at reality TV, since Katie becomes involved with a hospital docu-show called "Post-Op!" The focus of "Terminal City" is consistently on the psychological chaos of the Sampson family, but the scope widens enough to be a sort of Chayefskian satire about contemporary medicine and reality TV fame, too.
Katie stumbles into the reality show when she’s at the hospital for a biopsy. She is, as the aggressive producer of "Post-Op!" later tells her, "luminescent" on the air. The ridiculous series comes to life when Katie openly rants about dying and bares her breast to the camera, and the ratings pop accordingly. This plot development on "Terminal City" may sound forced, but creator Angus Fraser pulls it off by taking it gradually - Katie hasn't even begun her official involvement with "Post-Op!" by the end of the second episode. She wades slowly into the reality pool, her motivations clear with each step.
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