Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Breeders’ On FX, A Comedy Where Martin Freeman Plays A Dad On The Edge, Even Though He’ll Do Anything For His Kids

The “kids are such assholes” genre is flourishing right now, with harried parents populating shows like Catastrophe, Workin’ Moms and The Letdown. But those shows mostly deal with having babies or toddlers. Do things get better when the kids are a little older? Apparently not, as the new series Breeders attests. Co-created by star Martin Freeman, the show is mostly about a modern couple who are trying their best, and at least one of them thinks he’s not cutting it.

BREEDERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Nighttime in a modern-looking London townhouse. Inside, a man is sitting and trying to work on his laptop while we hear kids screaming in the background.

The Gist: Peter Worsley (Martin Freeman) and his wife Ally (Daisy Haggard) are like most modern parents; they both work and they’re both tired and frazzled as hell. But, while Ally seems to be taking the stress of raising seven-year-old Luke (George Wakeman) and four-year-old Ava (Jayda Eyles) in relative stride — she can read Ava The Very Hungry Caterpillar while mostly asleep — Martin’s not handling it as well, and he knows it.

As he climbs the stairs heading to his kids’ room after he hears a bang, he vows to himself not to blow up at them, because it does no good and makes them cry. Sure enough, he opens the door and starts yelling and dropping f-bombs, and also sure enough, the kids cry. And, as much as he and Ally would never physically harm their kids, they both debate which duvet would be best for smothering them; for some reason, they use this kind of macabre humor as a coping mechanism.

Neither kid can sleep this night, for various reasons: Luke got scared by a safety lesson at school and thinks that they’ll never be able to escape if the house catches fire, and Ava can’t sleep because she’s got a cold. Ally and Peter decide to take 19-minute shifts where one sleeps and one tries to get the kids to sleep. During his sleeping periods, Peter thinks back to their time pre-kids, when both he and Ally thought he’d be the most fun dad.

Then as we flash back to the kids’ births, we see that “niceness” wear down; he tells his father Jim (Alun Armstrong) that “I’m not nice. That’s what I found out. I’m nasty.” And we see that in another scene where he puts baby Luke down, he starts crying again, and Peter lets his “rage” fly. “I’m medically deranged when they wind me up,” he tells his ad.

At a certain point in the night, Ally falls asleep with her AirPods on and Peter decides not to wake her up, but he gets increasingly desperate to get his kids to sleep. In trying to explain to Luke how safe the smoke detector makes him he inadvertently mentions burglars, making Luke more afraid. He decided to go “old school” and drive the two of them around until they fall asleep. Of course, that leads to a lot of complications, especially when Ally wakes up to see the three of them gone.

Our Take: Breeders was co-created by Chris Addison, Simon Blackwell and Freeman, and everyone on their writing staff is a parent. That helps, because all modern parents know the joys and pains of raising kids, especially young ones. You love your kids to death, want to give them the best life possible, but boy do they try your patience. And some of the dark takes on Peter’s rage, and both Peter and Ally’s dark senses of humor when it comes to their kids, is pretty spot on. That’s why the first two episodes made us laugh so much.

The show is at its best when Peter and Ally are dealing with their kids and all of the bullcrap that goes with being parents, including trying to get both of their kids into the “right” school, which is the main topic of the second episode. You feel both of their frustrations, and sorta kinda understand why Peter might fly off the handle in front of his kids from time to time (read: often). What we enjoyed about it is that it pulled no punches when it comes to the difficulties of being parents in this day and age, where every website and Facebook group is bombarding you with parenting advice and you just want to make sure your kids grow up into decent people.

If you don’t have kids, you may think the characterization of Peter as an exaggerated version of the early Homer Simpson, who was gruff and thought nothing to put his hands around Bart’s neck when Bart was being a wiseass. But, it’s not all that exaggerated; sometimes you blow up at your kid when he or she has you at the end of your rope. Sure, you regret it later, but it happens. It’s a part of life.

Where the show is less effective is when Peter and Ally’s parenting efforts spiral into some dark misunderstandings. It’s especially apparent in episode 2, where they accidentally submarine the marriage of rival “have it all” parents who are vying for the same school to put their kids in as they are. Even the misunderstanding at the end of episode 1 somewhat undermines the everyday parental rage humor.

It’s good to see Freeman go back to his dark comedic roots, and Haggard continues her winning streak that she started on Back To Life. They’re helped along by the people that complicate their lives: their parents. Armstrong and Joanna Bacon are funny as hell as Peter’s old-fashioned parents Jim and Jackie; neither understand why Peter launches himself into his kids’ lives so much, and they’re busy trying to stick themselves in a nursing home, anyway. Stella Gonet plays Ally’s detached and self-involved mom Leah, who we see glimpses of in the first episode flashbacks. But in episode 2, we encounter Michael (Michael McKean), Ally’s estranged father who is an aging hippie who ends up living with Ally and Peter, giving them more mouths to feed.

All of them add to the potential richness that the show will be able to access. Let’s just hope the writers don’t get caught up in too many outlandish situations; they’re fine to come across occasionally but if they’re in every episode, the reality the show purports to display will disappear.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The next night Ally apologizes to Peter for sending the cops after him. “I would have never thought I murdered my child,” he tells her. When Luke cries out for his parents again, he guilts her into getting up and tending to him.

Sleeper Star: McKean doesn’t show up until Episode 2, but he plays the senior manchild Michael beautifully, and you can sense the tension Ally has with him right away, mainly because she doesn’t want her kids to turn out like him.

Most Pilot-y Line: The garbage collectors, seeing how many bottles are inside his recycling bins, knock on Peter’s door and say that they’re concerned about him (they’re both in recovery). Of course Peter brushes them off, but his nosy neighbor overhears it, which contributes to the misunderstanding.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the sometimes sitcommy misunderstandings and darkly silly situations, Breeders’ stark reality of what it’s like to parent young kids these days hits us right in our exhausted funny bones.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Breeders On Hulu