TOTALLY SICK

Director Statement

In my experience, TV shows and movies about cancer tend to follow sensitive, emotionally aware characters who rise to the challenge and show the rest of us how to face death head-on, with dignity and grace. I had no reason to question any of this until one day, fixing my collar on my way to work, I discovered a large lump just above my collarbone. It turned out to be malignant.

What I soon discovered was that the reality of getting cancer is very little like how it’s usually portrayed, and that, more often than not, it’s a comedy of errors starring patients, doctors, neurotic family members, and well-intentioned but clueless friends completely out of their emotional depth, offering advice like “Let’s make you a bucket list!” or asking questions like “You got a will?” while you’re being wheeled into surgery. There’s also the truly bizarre, like nurses who find bald, dying guys a turn-on. Really.

I decided that that was what I wanted to write about, and TOTALLY SICK is the result, a series showing the darkly funny, often brutal reality of cancer and how two deeply flawed but ultimately decent people stumble and trip their way through it.

The pilot I’ve submitted introduces us to Bob and Carol, two cynical, potty-mouthed New Yorkers, as they finish their first date. They clearly CAN’T STAND each other, but they decide to sleep together anyway, because, hey, why not? Things only go downhill from there, and eventually Carol kicks Bob out. But when Bob returns the next morning to retrieve his phone, Carol notices he has a very large lump on his neck. The lump, they soon learn, is malignant.

This, of course, forms the basis for the series, and Bob and Carol, despite their clear animosity for each other, eventually strike a deal: Carol will help Bob through his cancer treatments, and Bob will help Carol find Mr. Right—”Someone with a normal life-expectancy,” she insists.

Further episodes include:

* When one of Carol’s colleagues tells her that she may have “caught” Bob’s cancer because she blew him, Carol goes to confront Bob at his doctor’s office.

* During a visit to a sperm bank prior to starting chemo, Bob is too freaked out to get the job done, so he calls Carol for “phone help”—while she’s on a date.

* When Carol and Bob have a fight and Carol refuses to keep helping him, Bob enlists his pothead brother, Rich, instead. It all goes well until Rich uses Bob’s name to get medical marijuana and invites his pothead friends over for a party.

* When Bob loses his job because of his illness, Carol goes to confront his boss about it and ends up sleeping with him instead. Bob’s boss ultimately offers Bob his job back if he can get Carol to leave him alone.

* Carol, jealous of all the attention Bob is getting from women sympathetic about his cancer, starts telling people she has cancer, too. Unfortunately Carol learns that, even when it comes to cancer, dating in your forties is still unfair to women.

* Carol’s mother tries to convince Carol to marry Bob so she can “cash in big when he flatlines.” Carol refuses, so her mother starts making moves on Bob herself.

I hope you enjoy the film.