"The Big C"
(Mondays at 10:30 on Showtime)

Can the humor truly be found in anything?

There is obviously nothing funny at all about cancer. It's no surprise then that this new comedy series about Cathy Jamison (Laura Linney) a woman diagnosed with terminal melanoma, isn't mining laughs from disease. Cancer is the dark cloud hanging over her, but she's going to find the joy in life before it's too late, and maybe in a way, as a defiant thumb in the eye at what's killing her.

Cathy has long lived a straight-laced life, something that her husband Paul (Oliver Platt) has taken advantage of. Since Cathy hasn't told anyone at all that she has cancer, Paul and their son Adam (Gabriel Basso) obliviously continue to treat her like the welcome mat they always have. After kicking Paul out of the house following a drunken episode that ruined their couch, she tells him, "I don't want to be the one to pick out the new couch. I want to be the one spilling the fruit punch."

"But you're not the spilling-the-fruit-punch type," he tells her condescendingly.

At the urging of her doctor, Cathy decides she wants to finally tell someone. But her self-righteous environmentalist brother Sean (John Benjamin Hickey) doesn't seem the proper choice, nor does her bitter shut-in neighbor Marlene (Phyllis Somerville), who opposes Cathy's desire to put a pool in her front yard.

Even without telling anyone about her cancer, Cathy is still letting out her honest feelings in other ways. As she flips through online catalogs while presiding over her summer school class, a student asks, "Are you gonna teach us anything today?"

"Have I ever taught you anything?" she asks dryly. "Really? This is summer school so I guess the answer's obvious."

The pilot episode of this series does exactly what a pilot should. It made me want to keep watching. Linney is perfect for the role, displaying a mix of joy and deep sadness in the face of death. Written by Darlene Hunt, the first episode finds the comedy outside the edges of a terrible subject. Cathy's determination to live her remaining days well, and to turn her son into a decent human being, are where the laughs are. She's funny, we care about her, and we hope she will remain strong as her cancer progresses, but we know where this is going.

A pilot doesn't always indicate how a series will end up being, but there is clearly a lot of promise here. Hopefully this series will become richer as it goes on.

If you do not have Showtime, the pilot episode is available online at Sho.com. It's worth your time. Hopefully future episodes will be available online too.