The Big C is a Showtime original television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 series created by Darlene Hunt

Darlene Hunt

Darlene Hunt is an American actress and producer of television best known for creating and executive producing the Showtime series The Big C.- Career :...

 which premiered on August 16, 2010. It drew the largest audience for a Showtime original series premiere in eight years. On September 20, 2010, The Big C was renewed for a second season which premiered on June 27, 2011. On September 2, 2011, The Big C was renewed for a third season.

Premise

The show follows Cathy Jamison, a reserved suburban wife and mother whose recent stage-IV

Cancer staging

The stage of a cancer is a description of the extent the cancer has spread. The stage often takes into account the size of a tumor, how deeply it has penetrated, whether it has invaded adjacent organs, how many lymph nodes it has metastasized to , and whether it has spread to distant organs...

 melanoma

Melanoma

Melanoma is a malignant tumor of melanocytes. Melanocytes are cells that produce the dark pigment, melanin, which is responsible for the color of skin. They predominantly occur in skin, but are also found in other parts of the body, including the bowel and the eye...

 diagnosis forces her to really begin to live for the first time in her adult life. At first she chooses to keep the fact of her terminal illness secret from her family, behaving in ways they find puzzling and increasingly bizarre as she finds new freedom to express herself. As the show progresses, Cathy allows her family and some new friends to support her as she copes with her illness, and finds both humor and pathos in the many idiosyncratic relationships in her life.

Main cast

• Laura Linney
  Laura Linney
  Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress of film, television, and theatre. Linney has won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has been nominated for three times for an Academy Award and once for a BAFTA Award...
  
   as Catherine "Cathy" Jamison. Cathy is a high school teacher who, at the start of the series, has been recently diagnosed with terminal (stage IV) melanoma. Reluctant to burden her family and friends with the news, she keeps it a secret for months. She does reveal her illness to neighbor and friend Marlene (who later commits suicide). Her behavior dramatically changes as she begins to make reckless choices in the face of oncoming death. These include kicking her husband out of the house, spending money on an expensive car and having an affair. She befriends Andrea, a mouthy student. Desperate to make sure her teenage son is on the right path before she dies, she unintentionally drives a rift between them. She ends her affair when it is exposed, and allows her husband to move back in after finally revealing to him that she is sick. She gives Marlene's house, which Marlene left to Cathy in her will, to her brother Sean. She decides to undergo a treatment with great risks because she wants to live.
• Oliver Platt
  Oliver Platt
  Oliver James Platt is a Canadian-American actor. He is currently starring in the Showtime original series, The Big C with Laura Linney.-Early life:...
  
   as Paul Jamison, Cathy's husband. Paul has a somewhat child-like approach to life, and Cathy kicks him out of the house because she is fed up looking after him. He doesn't really understand the situation but appeases her in the hopes that the situation can be repaired. While separated, he has a sexual encounter with another woman; this is ultimately forgiven in the face of Cathy's affair. After Cathy reveals her cancer to him, he moves back in and becomes overly-attentive and doting. At the end of the second season finale episode Paul appears to Cathy as a hallucination at the end of the marathon she runs and then a cut scene shows him being worked on by an EMS team after ingesting cocaine earlier in the day. Platt had previously co-starred with Laura Linney in the film Kinsey
  Kinsey (film)
  Kinsey is a 2004 biographical film written and directed by Bill Condon. It describes the life of Alfred Kinsey , a pioneer in the area of sexology. His 1948 publication, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was one of the first recorded works that tried to scientifically address and investigate...
  
  .
• John Benjamin Hickey
  John Benjamin Hickey
  John Benjamin Hickey is an American actor with a career in stage, film and television. He won the 2011 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Felix Turner in The Normal Heart....
  
   as Sean Tolkey, Cathy's brother. Sean is an eccentric, homeless anti-establishment environmentalist. He is frequently dirty and eats out of garbage cans. Though somewhat removed in their relationship, Cathy begins making a concerted effort to get closer to him after she is diagnosed with cancer. He starts a relationship with Cathy's college friend Rebecca; it ends badly. At one point Cathy reveals her illness to him and he has an emotional breakdown; she reneges, claiming she made it up to get a reaction. He and Rebecca are going to have a baby together. At the beginning of Season Two, it's revealed that Sean suffers from bipolar disorder
  Bipolar disorder
  Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
  
   and refuses to take medication for it.
• Gabriel Basso
  Gabriel Basso
  Gabriel Basso is an American film and television actor who has been active since 2007.-Life and career:Basso was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved with his mother, Marcie, and sisters, to Los Angeles in 2008. He booked minor roles in two feature films in early 2007 in St...
  
   as Adam Jamison, Cathy and Paul's son. A typical teenager, he resists his mother's sudden increase in attention and affection. He strikes an unsteady friendship with schoolmate Andrea, but it falls apart after he blanches when it is insinuated by others that they are sexually intimate. After getting in trouble, he is punished by being forced to do house chores for Marlene. He is the first to realize Marlene has Alzheimer's disease. In one of her episodes, Marlene - not recognizing him - pulls a gun on him and chases him out of her home. While his mother is in the hospital getting treatment, he discovers a key to a storage locker that is filled with hundreds of gifts for his future birthdays, holidays and major life events. He realizes his mother is not going to live very long and finally reacts emotionally.
• Gabourey Sidibe
  Gabourey Sidibe
  Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe is an American actress who made her acting debut in the 2009 film Precious, a role that brought her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.-Early life:...
  
   as Andrea Jackson, a mouthy and combative student in Cathy's class. Cathy takes an interest in her and offers her a cash reward for losing weight. She is the first person to realize Cathy is having an affair. She lies to Cathy about her upbringing and economic status, claiming her mother is a drug addict and they live in poverty. Cathy visits their home to discover she lives in a lovely upper middle class home with two educated, caring parents. In the second season, Andrea comes to live with Cathy and her family due to her parents moving away to Africa for missionary work.
• Phyllis Somerville
  Phyllis Somerville
  Phyllis Somerville, born 1944, is an American stage, screen, and television actress. Her most prominent role to date was in 2006 as the mother of the sexual predator played by Jackie Earle Haley in Todd Field's Little Children....
  
   as Marlene, Cathy's elderly neighbor and friend. Somewhat crotchety, Marlene lost her husband to cancer many years earlier. She has two daughters, from whom she is estranged. Although she finds Cathy annoying first, the two quickly become friends, eventually becoming close to the whole family. Marlene is the first person to know Cathy's secret. She figures it out after her dog keeps stalking Cathy, because dogs can supposedly "smell" cancer. Marlene starts to exhibit episodes of memory loss, often suddenly forgetting where she is and who people are. She finally admits to Cathy that she has Alzheimer's. She pulls a gun on Adam, not recognizing who he is, and her horror of what she might do as she continues to deteriorate makes her decide to kill herself. At the beginning of the second season, she appears to Cathy during hallucinations.

Recurring cast

• Reid Scott
  Reid Scott (actor)
  Reid Scott is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Brendan Dorff on the hit television show, My Boys. He has also appeared in several television commercials, the popular show All My Children, and in the off-Broadway play "Cargo."- Life and career :Scott was born on November 19,...
  
   as Dr. Todd Mauer, Cathy's oncologist
  Oncology
  Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with cancer...
  
   and friend. Compassionate and concerned, he goes beyond the doctor/patient relationship by going on several personal outings with Cathy. He begins to become her confidante as she tells him all of the secrets she cannot tell her family. He allows her to accompany him while house shopping for him and his girlfriend. He reluctantly accompanies Cathy to Canada for an alternative therapy treatment, and while there reveals that he is "confused" and has feelings for her.
• Cynthia Nixon
  Cynthia Nixon
  Cynthia Ellen Nixon is an American actress, known for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City . She has received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award....
  
   as Rebecca, Cathy's college roommate and long-time friend. She resurfaces at Cathy's birthday party after a long absence. When she begins a sexual relationship with Sean, Cathy reveals that she has always found Rebecca to be selfish and a bad friend, which serves as a wake-up call and leads to the end of the romance. In the finale she reveals to Sean she is pregnant with his child, after which he arrives at her hotel to tell her he is wanting to raise the child together. She later moves in with Sean and they fall in love, becoming engaged. However, when Rebecca miscarries their child Sean goes off his meds leaving Rebecca no choice but to leave him.
• Nadia Dajani
  Nadia Dajani
  Nadia Dajani is an American actress of Irish and Palestinian descent.-Acting career:For two seasons , she starred as Amanda Moyer in the Fox television sitcom, Ned & Stacey. She starred in numerous television pilots...
  
   as Tina, who went to High School with Cathy and Paul and was then known as "Rugby Slut". Always attending the local rugby games, not saying die to her youth, she starts an affair with Paul (Paulie) after Cathy kicks him out. Cathy discovers their affair when she comes to offer Paul an olive branch and sees Tina leaving with her thong.
• Idris Elba
  Idris Elba
  Idrissa Akuna "Idris" Elba is a British television, theatre, and film actor. He has starred in both British and American productions. Elba grew up in Canning Town, East London. One of his first acting roles was in the soap opera Family Affairs. He has worked in a variety of TV roles including ...
  
   as Lenny, a painter at Cathy's school, and Cathy's love-interest in a number of episodes. The have a brief affair but Cathy ends it as she re-examines her feelings for Paul.
• Hugh Dancy
  Hugh Dancy
  - Early life and career :Dancy was born in Stoke-on-Trent, the son of British philosopher Jonathan Dancy, a professor at the University of Reading and at the University of Texas at Austin. His mother, Sarah, is a publisher. His brother, Jack, is a co-director of the travel company, Trufflepig...
  
   as Lee, a fellow patient in Cathy's clinical trial introduced in season two. Cathy thinks Lee is inappropriately interested in her until he comes out as gay. She and Lee find comfort in each other due to their cancer, and become "clinical trial" buddies. However, their relationship becomes strained when the treatment begins to work for Cathy and not Lee. As she encourages him to fight, he refuses. Ultimately Lee dies from his cancer, leaving Cathy devastated.

Critical reception

The Big Cs pilot episode was received positively, while subsequent episodes received negative reviews. Season One received an overall score of 66 on Metacritic. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times wrote: "The Big C works because most of the writing is strong and believable, and so is Ms. Linney, who rarely sounds a false note and here has perfect pitch... the series is at its best when sardonic and subdued." Washington Post critic Hank Stuever said: "Buoyed by scalpel-sharp writing and even keener performances, The Big C...walks a fine line of having it both ways. It's for people who are repelled by the warm-fuzzy, disease-o'-the-week dramas of cable television," while EW.com's Ken Tucker quibbled with its major plot point: "My big problem with The Big C concerns a crucial decision the show made for the early episodes: Cathy declines to tell those closest to her that she has cancer. While this is one of the many different reactions people have to such a diagnosis in real life, in a comedy-drama like this, it makes everyone around her seem a bit dim."

The second season received similar reviews to the first, receiving a score of 64 on Metacritic. Maureen Ryan of AOL TV stated that "Having a character and her family deal with a potentially fatal illness is such a rich arena for both drama and black comedy, but so far, The Big C hasn't been able to mine that topic with consistent freshness and depth." Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly was critical towards the show, but commended the acting, stating that "Much of The Big C's unoriginal dramatization of cancer concerns is mitigated by the fresh, dynamic performances of Linney and Oliver Platt."

International broadcasting

Country	Network	Series Premiere
	GEM GEM (Australian TV channel) GEM is an Australian free-to-air high definition digital television channel, launched by the Nine Network on Sunday 26 September 2010 at 6am...	September 29, 2010
	HBO	January 16, 2011
	Super Channel	September 1, 2010
	Mega Channel Mega Channel Mega Channel, also known as Mega TV or just Mega, is a major television network in Greece. Teletypos S.A. was founded in 1989 under the name Teletypos Television Programmes S.A...	2011
	YLE TV1 YLE TV1 YLE TV1 is a Finnish television channel owned and operated by Finnish public broadcaster Yleisradio. It is the first and oldest Television channel in Finland. More than 70% of channel's programs are documentaries, news or educative programmes...	October 15, 2011
	FOX Fox Channel (Germany) Fox Channel is a German television channel dedicated to television drama series.The channel started broadcasting on the Arena platform and the Unitymedia cable network on May 20, 2008....	April 5, 2011
	Mega Channel Mega Channel Mega Channel, also known as Mega TV or just Mega, is a major television network in Greece. Teletypos S.A. was founded in 1989 under the name Teletypos Television Programmes S.A...	2011
	RUV RÚV Ríkisútvarpið is Iceland's national public-service broadcasting organization.Operating from studios in the country's capital, Reykjavík, as well as regional centres around the country, the service broadcasts a variety of general programming to a wide audience across the whole country via radio...	February 17, 2011
	RTE RTE RTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey...	June 17,2011
	HOT3	April 4, 2011
	FoxLife Fox Life (Italy) Fox Life is a television channel in Italy owned by Fox International Channels Italy. The channel primarily targets women.Two time-shifted versions of the channel, called Fox Life +1 and Fox Life +2, broadcast the same programming an hour later or two hours later.-Programming:The schedule contains...	June 21, 2011
	TV3 TV3 (New Zealand) TV3 is a New Zealand commercial television network, owned by MediaWorks New Zealand. Launched on 26 November 1989, the first private television network in New Zealand...	October 12, 2010
	M-NET M-Net M-Net is a subscription-funded television channel in South Africa, established in 1986 by Naspers....	May 17, 2011
	POP BRIO	September 7, 2011
	SVT	February 19, 2011
	ComedyMax ComedyMax ComedyMax is a television channel in Turkey, which broadcasts worldwide hit TV series as Turkish subtitled. It is exclusively available for Digiturk satellite package subscribers.-Shows:Some of the shows on ComedyMax:...	October 2, 2010
	More4 More4 More4 is a digital television channel, run by British broadcaster Channel 4, that launched on 10 October 2005. It is carried on Freeview, on satellite broadcasters Freesat and Sky, UK IPTV broadcaster TalkTalk TV and on UK cable network Virgin Media and in the Republic of Ireland cable networks...	February 3, 2011

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Nominee	Result
2010	Satellite Award	Television Series (Musical or Comedy)	Series
	Satellite Award	Best Actress - Television Series (Musical or Comedy)	Laura Linney
2011	Golden Globe Award Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...	Television Series (Musical Or Comedy)	Series
	Golden Globe Award	Best Actress - Television Series (Musical or Comedy)	Laura Linney
	American Cinema Editors Award American Cinema Editors Awards 2010 The 61st American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards, which will be presented on Saturday, February 19, 2011 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, honored the best editors in films and televisions of 2010.Nominees were announced on January 14, 2011.-Film:...	Best Edited Half Hour Series for Television	Brian A. Kates - "Pilot"
	Primetime Emmy Award Primetime Emmy Award The Primetime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming...	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series	Laura Linney - "Pilot"
	Primetime Emmy Award	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series	Idris Elba - "Blue-Eyed Iris"
	Primetime Emmy Award	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series	Julie Tucker and Ross Meyerson