The problem was very likely the lingering stink of the title and about half of the first season. No one believes if you swim with sea turtles to the tune of $25 grand that you will suddenly have a brighter outlook on life. Who cares? Of course if someone makes it through rehab and stays off of the sauce and the snort, we give them a big hand. Rage rehab? It was never believable that Avedon/Cogentiva hired her Amy character back in the first place after banging her boss and making a scene about it either. But after they put her in the dungeon with other data processors, things started to get interesting as Amy discovered more evil and environmental dirty deeds could be attributed directly to the hands of the corporation.
It was also a pleasure to see Dern work with her mother Diane Ladd and that on screen relationship was so complex it could have bloomed larger than Amy's mom's roses. Just the looks on Ladd's face every episode when her daughter with her newly found cock-eyed optimism spouted out her latest schemes....priceless. Luke Wilson as Amy's burnout ex-husband Levi did some of the best work of his career and it was so refreshing not to see him as just the handsome wallpaper in a romantic comedy. Mike White as Amy's cohort Tyler typically plays a brainiac nerd but took it "up to eleven" in Enlightened showing his angst over accessing private information on company big-wigs' computer hard drives. Molly Shannon was, well, Molly Shannon, and those other bitches were just bitches. It would have been really interesting to see where Amy's supervisor Dougie (Timm Smith) ended up after laying off his staff in a cloud of pot smoke and rage. No one expected Dermott McDermott's reporter character (Dermot Mulroney) to hang around after using Amy just to get his expose for the LA Times. But didn't everyone think Amy might get back with her ex-husband Levi? Isn't it always fun to think about someone banging Luke Wilson?
HBO really blew it on this one - in this current climate with people being laid off and huge corporations running Washington, DC while killing the planet simultaneously the show could have run for years! Sure, the Amy character was an asshole, and the audience probably didn't care if she ever achieved "enlightenment" but she could have continued to do good for the earth and others even if she was doomed to remain a hot mess.
If you agree that Enlightened should be saved, you can go to HBO's poorly designed website to complain, or you can do it the old fashioned way and contact them at:
HBO Corporate Office & Headquarters
1100 Avenue of the Americas Room H13-16 New York NY 10036
HBO corporate phone number:
(212) 512-1000
I hate it when a really good show (without zombies or vampires or meth labs) goes away! Don't you?
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