Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fleishman Is In Trouble’ On FX/Hulu, Where A New York Doctor Tries To Navigate His Divorce, Including All The Sex

There’s a reason why shows like Seinfeld and Friends are revered, despite having a lot of episodes that are very New York-centric: They deal with universal themes and things that are relatable to anyone, especially when it comes to human nature. A new series on FX/Hulu takes place on the Upper East Side of New York, but has more than enough that’s relatable to someone who’s never set foot in the Big Apple.

FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An upside-down shot of the New York skyline, as we push into a starkly-decorated apartment. Dr. Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg) is lying in his bed.

The Gist: Fleishman, who lives on the Upper East Side, is 41 and has recently gotten a divorce from Rachel (Claire Danes), his wife of 15 years. What he’s been finding is that, while being divorced and seeing his kids Hannah (Meara Mahoney Gross) and Solly (Maxim Swinton) every other weekend and other sporadic times stinks, he’s become a rock star on the dating apps, which he never used in his previous single days.

It helps that he’s a divorced doctor, a hepatologist in charge of a top department at a large New York hospital. He has his parameters, mainly deciding to go his age or older, but let’s just say that he’s gotten laid a lot since the divorce.

He’s also reconnected with his old college friends Libby Epstein (Lizzy Caplan) — the show’s narrator — and Seth Morris (Adam Brody), both of whom pretty much lost touch after Toby married the high-powered theater talent agent who was more than a bit controlling. For Libby’s part, her newfound friendship with the divorced Toby has made her wonder about her suburban life with her kids and husband Adam (Josh Radnor).

Toby wakes up one morning to a phone call from Rachel that she found a last-minute opening at a yoga retreat and has dropped the kids off a day early, literally marching them into his apartment in the middle of the night. This means he has to navigate the vipers nest of “concerned” moms at the 92nd St. Y when he drops the kids off for their day camp. But, for the most part, having them there is cramping his style, as one of the women he’s dating is supposed to come over for a night of who knows what. One problem: Rachel isn’t responding to any of his voicemails or texts, and she’s pretty much disappeared.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Fleishman Is In Trouble sort of feels like Big Little Lies crossed with half a season of Seinfeld. We’re not kidding.

Our Take: Fleishman Is In Trouble was written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner based on her popular novel of the same name, and it certainly takes a few risks. First, there’s Caplan’s narration, which in a lot of cases might feel invasive, but works here because of Caplan’s usual droll delivery. When she goes off on the Y, saying it was “as infected by the Upper East Side as anything else that came into contact with it,” we let out a big laugh, knowing how affected things are in that particular place.

But that’s the other needle Brodesser-Akner needed to thread: Sure, we’ve had our experiences in New York to lead us to recognize just what Toby Fleishman is experiencing, but will the “New Yorkness” of Fleishman’s story have a more universal appeal? By concentrating on how Toby, who when he was younger never really sniffed the kind of dating success he’s having, is navigating his divorce makes the story more universal. He’s loving the attention he’s getting from the city’s single women, even while lamenting the reasons why his marriage failed.

He’s not at all navel-gazing, giving the show a much lighter tone and faster pace. Sure, he still wishes he knew where everything went wrong with Rachel, but he can’t worry about that too much, given his social life and now the sudden disappearance of his ex-wife. That comes through in Eisenberg’s performance, where he’s almost sitting in wonder at his good fortune, even if he’s a guy whose favorite meal is grilled chicken with very little oil. So, yes, he’s a bit uptight, but that’s not stopping him from taking advantage.

As we get into the series, we’ll see more about the marriage and how it fell apart, which should give us more of a glimpse into Danes as Rachel. Right now, it feels like a one-sided deal where it seems like she was controlling and power hungry, forcing Toby to hang out with her mom friends’ husbands, who are all typical UES douchebags. But there seems to be more to that than we see at first. Caplan and Brody are great as Toby’s support system, and we’re pretty sure Caplan’s character Libby will spend the season trying to figure out if the life she has is what she really wants.

Sex and Skin: Oh, there’s a lot of both. There’s an especially dizzying scene when we see Toby having different varieties of sex with four different women, and the camera starts spinning in an overhead view of all the sex.

Parting Shot: As Toby leaves angry calls to Rachel, his date scared away by his kids, his 11-year-old daughter yelling and his 9-year-old son crying, the view turns upside down once again.

Sleeper Star: Joy Suprano is sufficiently annoying as Cyndi Leffner to make her “concerned mom” character stand out. As she tells Toby that they’ll still be friends despite the divorce, we had the same uncomfortable feeling Toby did, which is basically, “And I care about that why?”

Most Pilot-y Line: When Toby tells Libby — in their first meeting after no contact for 12 years — that his apartment is a “hovel compared to the palace I’ve been living in”, it was the only moment when Eisenberg was giving off strong Woody Allen vibes. Those aren’t vibes we wanted to feel, and thankfully he didn’t channel Woody through the rest of the episode.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Fleishman Is In Trouble is funny and takes more than enough unexpected turns to keep the show from being yet another annoying series about rich people having problems.

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, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.