Confession first - I usually like British TV shows, but have always found US adaptations lacking. For Instance, I really like the UK version of Being Human, and cannot make myself watch a complete episode of the US version; I would perhaps feel differently if I hadn't seen entire UK version before watching the US version.
Well I'd never seen or even heard of the UK version of Shameless, and I only started watching the US version from the beginning of season 2. Somehow I stumbled across an episode earlier this month, and read largely favorable reviews, save some who'd seen the UK version first. I then used Showtime On Demand to watch the entire second season.
I highly recommend the show, but believe that some people might be offended by the harsh language, nudity, and sexual content as the show is full of all three. If this were a movie playing at the cinema, it would likely be rated NC-17; as it's on subscription TV, it's rated TV- MA (Adult Content, Graphic Language, Nudity). If such content offends your sensibilities, you will not like this show, and should just avoid it; this is no show for children.
Shameless is a good title for the program; an alternative, more descriptive title might be "Social Dysfunction Olympics: One family's race to the bottom". It's listed as being a Drama and Comedy, but the comedy is usually of the tragic or dark variety. The core family, their friends and neighbors are multi-generation families in a poor neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. The current generation of siblings have largely raised themselves because the parents are too busy chasing their next score, whether that be money, booze, or drugs; you quickly realize that sex is often a tool used to score.
The father and mother are perhaps the most reprehensible people one could imagine, but the way it plays out, they usually show just enough humanity to allow the audience to not want to kill them. The children are better people than their parents, and the parents are perhaps slightly better than the grandmother. It's all so tragic, but there are also heart warming scenes. Each episode is like an emotional roller-coaster ride, eliciting concern, fear, frustration, and laughter from the audience.
If you have not seen the show before, there is a writeup at wikipedia which gives plenty of background on each of the characters, but also contains significant spoilers. Make sure to lookup the US version as the UK is different and also listed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shameless_(U.S._TV_series)
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