There are scenes that are bitingly funny (one in which Linney informs a caustic Gabourey Sidibe that she can't be both fat and mean -- "You can either be fat and joyous or a skinny bitch. It's up to you" -- is particularly fabulous) and scenes that are poignant and heartbreaking, and not in a particularly generic cancer-story way (I don't say that to at all belittle the experience of cancer patients -- just the phoned-in way television tends to treat those battles). The show does suffer from a horribly annoying teenage son character that I want to dropkick, and, really, far too many scenes where the joke is that Laura Linney's breasts are accidentally falling out of her shirt. But this show's definitely got something going on. I'm season-passing.

The Big C premieres on Showtime at 10:30 PM tonight, opposite the latter halves of Dating in the Dark and The Real Housewives of New Jersey.