Watch My Show: ‘You Me Her’ is the Polyromantic Comedy With ‘Valid Emotional Stakes’
Romantic triangles are a TV favorite, but Audience Network’s You Me Her is a little different. Greg Poehler plays a man who doesn’t have to choose between two love interests: Instead, he and his wife (Rachel Blanchard) have developed a relationship with another woman (Priscilla Faia).
Audience Network (available on DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse) is promoting the series as TV’s “first polyromantic comedy.” Creator John Scott Shepherd, whose credits include the NBC sitcom Save Me and the feature films Life or Something Like It and Joe Somebody, filled out our showrunner survey to explain why you should fine some room in your heart for You Me Her.
I’ve got room in my life to watch just one more show. Tell me why it should be yours.
Assuming you’re not watching any other “polyromantic comedies,” there’s nothing like it on your DVR, even if you’re the most discerning of TV snobs. If you like your comedy populated by people who feel real, like you or someone you know, and appreciate valid emotional stakes? I think you’ll dig You Me Her.
John Scott Shepherd
As provocative as the title and hook may be, this isn’t a show about sex. It’s a show about relationships and happiness. It’s a question very much in the zeitgeist right now: “What if your best, truest life looked nothing like you imagined? Would you be brave enough to live it?”
Who should be watching?
Adults who like streaming or premium cable relationship comedies that push boundaries but worry that the latest one is starting to feel a little too much like the one before it.
What happens if we don’t watch your show?
Your coolest friends will gather and say snarky things behind your back.
What’s the best thing anyone has said or written about your show?
One reporter was openly surprised by how emotionally invested she became. Expected a “bawdy romp” and got way more than she bargained for.
What’s the worst thing?
They wanted it to be “pornier and wackier.”
Who was right?
Both.
RELATED: Read Our Other Showrunner Surveys
What’s an alternate title for your show?
The Polyamateurs or Over My Head.
Give us an equation for your show.
Catastrophe minus pregnancy plus a grad student divided by societal norms.
Come up with a premise for the spin-off.
Me Me Me. Three may be a crowd but one is the loneliest number.
What credit of yours would you prefer we forget?
I had two rushed writer’s strike movies earlier this millennium that were “developed” beyond my own recognition and without my involvement. Remembering the titles would be a waste of elective shock therapy, which wasn’t covered by Writer’s Guild insurance.
Tell me one thing about your cast.
Nobody, including me, could have known how incredibly good Poehler, Blanchard and Faia would be individually or as a trio. It still boggles me. Absolute Kismet.
What other series would you most like to be an executive producer on?
I love the burgeoning, tonally complex new world of “prestige half hour.” It was teed up by Bob Greenblatt’s Showtime, like Weeds and Nurse Jackie, but now it’s taken on an indie film vibe I really love. Because it transcends any sense of “mumblecore” and has an almost Working Title/Richard Curtis romanticism to it, I’ll go with a second mention of Catastrophe.
Let’s scare the network. Tell us an idea that didn’t make it on to the screen.
I was going to pull a Hitchcock and appear fleetingly in every episode, always naked. It was actually my wife who nixed that one.
Finish this sentence: “If you like _______, you’ll love our show.”
Emotionally resonant comedy that that aspires to be “about something” without tasting like creamed kale and homework.
Pick another show, any show, to start a fake feud with.
You’re the Worst. The whole cast seems pretty badass so it could get nasty. I’m hoping it devolves into a dance off.
What other show would you like to do a crossover episode with—and how would that go?
An intense network procedural with a lot of acronyms. And it would be a hilarious trainwreck. You should probably look away but you just can’t.
How will your show change the face of TV as we know it?
By dragging an extramarital/alternative relationship dramedy out of the moody darkness and rarified air of the 74th floor to set it on Main Street, make it relatable. And fun.
I mean, very humbly.
You Me Her, Tuesdays, 9/8c, Audience Network (DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse)
