Sharon Horgan’s HBO Comedy ‘Youth’ Is a Light, Breezy Take on Middle Age: TV Review — SkimNews
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- 'Youth' premieres Sept. 20 at 10pm ET on HBO and HBO Max, with the first two episodes debuting that night and the remaining six airing weekly
- Sharon Horgan frames the series as the third installment of a semi-autobiographical trilogy following BBC's 'Pulling' (chaotic 20somethings) and 'Catastrophe' (early parenthood and long-term monogamy)
- Alex, the 50-year-old protagonist, is a London book agent many years divorced whose teenage son Ruari — played by Aran Murphy, Cillian Murphy's son — is leaving for university as she enters perimenopause
- The publishing-industry satire runs throughout, including a parody romantasy novel called 'Gobbin Seed,' a Damian Lewis cameo as himself pitching a treatise on dog meat, and Harriet Walter as the daughter of a romance author chasing prestige for her mother's smut
- Alex's central storyline is sex and dating: her primary love interest is Pat (Rupert Friend), an 'institutionally single' ex-flame with a much younger girlfriend, while she also pursues 'lightly degrading' one-night stands with continental himbos
- The series keeps stakes modest by design, with the review noting it's 'less of a broad parable and more a specific story of one woman straining to make sense of a confusing crossroads'
Why it matters: Horgan's semi-autobiographical trilogy now spans 20s, new parenthood, and now 50s — and the review explicitly notes middle age remains far less 'mythologized' on TV than earlier decades. The eight-episode HBO order gives a half-hour rom-com a 50-year-old lead at a moment when the genre rarely ventures beyond 30-something heroines, testing whether prestige streaming will follow.
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