Considering that there’s already been at least one truly great TV series about the slow, horror-filled death inflicted by cancer, it seems only fair that we get one about the dangers and complications of surviving it. Enter HBO, newcomer Jeff Roda, and his new show, When I’m Sixty-Four, which tells the story of “a narcissistic New Yorker who’s given an unexpected reprieve from terminal cancer,” and who now deals with the fact that he’s been, in the words of grief counselor Tim McGraw, “living like he were dying.” (We’re guessing that means a lot of existential dread and telling people to go fuck themselves.)
When I’m Sixty-Four is being produced by journeyman director Howard Deutch (Pretty In Pink, The Whole Ten Yards, sporadic episodes of a whole bunch of stuff like True Blood and Jane The Virgin), who signed a deal last year to direct and produce for the network. Roda, meanwhile, is a three-time Black List screenwriter, although his only actual writing credit is as the author of Lifetime’s The Unauthorized Beverly Hills, 90210 Story, in of itself a pretty horrible ordeal to have survived.