There is something about HBO’s new comedy “Enlightened” that makes it better than it sounds. On the surface, the show’s premise sounds fairly typical of premium cable channel fare, especially when a female lead is involved.
    
The series begins with the eye-raising scene of executive buyer Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern) going on a public tirade after her boss reassigns her to a new position in the company. Amy thinks she was reassigned because of her affair with the boss, and this is probably true. She starts screaming, cursing and yelling at him until he gets to the elevator. She even manages to open the elevator briefly to fit some more screaming in.
    
Amy then goes off on a rehabilitation trip, where she gets in touch with her philosophical side and starts spouting a bunch of self-help mumbo jumbo, to the delight of no one when she returns to work and her fledgling social life. After threatening the company with a lawsuit for wrongful termination, since the reason for her departure was self-help following a breakdown, she gets a job at her company again.
    
But her former assistant was promoted to her old job, and the job she was going to get transferred to has been filled, as well. This time she is reassigned to a bottom-floor data entry job, with misfit co-workers.
    
It would have been so easy for this show to fall into the quirkiness trap, just having Amy give up trying to please everybody and live it up in oh so socially unconventional ways. Thank God it did not go in this direction because there are about a million shows on television that do. In fact, pretty much every line from Showtime’s “The Big C” is “I’m going to do what no one expects me to do!”
    
Instead, “Enlightened” plays with the conventional. There is the established story in self-help of the person who goes off the rails, takes a sabbatical to learn new ways of thinking, becomes “enlightened” and returns to the world to make amends and help others. This is supposed to be a process that people encourage others to go through. This is supposed to be a good story.
    
But in the real world, especially in the corporate world, everyone is obsessed with themselves. And they do not even have time to pay lip service to Amy’s changes. In fact, her co-workers from her old department are disgusted she even got her job back at all. They do not want her to have a second chance. So when Amy starts having conversations with these people again, it’s hilarious.
    
Even better, in the second episode, Amy admits that she knows one of her co-workers, who she just smiled and talked to, hates her. And she realizes her old assistant must feel uncomfortable talking to her, since she still works for the boss. She just wants to be friends, to have some sort of ally.
    
This is not the typical two-dimensional lead character that is unrealistically oblivious to everything. She is just trying to play the political game by a new set of rules, and she is frustrated that her attempts are constantly getting rebuffed. Dern plays this excellently, especially in a scene during the second episode where she sulks away, head down, from her old assistant’s office.
    
An even funnier rebuff of her changed life is her attempts to reach out to her ex-husband Levi (Luke Wilson). In the middle of a conversation in the first episode, Levi starts snorting drugs and asks her if she wants a hit. She leaves mortified. Wilson plays the laid-back ex-husband role superbly. When feigning enthusiasm about a self-help book Amy is trying to give him, there is just something about the coughed-up way he says “Hey!” that is funny, endearing and authentic at the same time.
    
But what has truly ensured that the show is a winner is the addition of a hilarious supporting cast of new co-workers for Amy on the data-entry floor. In particular, Timm Sharp (“Undeclared”) plays her boss Dougie, whose lines should get an audible laugh nearly every time. His non-sequitur humor is hilarious, and the scene in the second episode where Dougie and Amy meet for the first time is must-see.
    
And at the end of each episode, “Enlightened” truly has some heart. Viewers get the impression that Amy really is trying to change, just in a terribly toxic environment. But the show seems to take great pains to tone down the sap and emphasize pure humor. All considered, “Enlightened” is definitely worth a try.

— Robby O’Daniel is a graduate student in communications. He can be reached at rodaniel@utk.edu.