David Farnor | On 08, Aug 2016

One Mississippi will lead a month-long comedy season on Amazon Prime Video this September.

The show, which stars Tig Notaro as a loosely fictionalised version of herself, sees a woman go home to Mississippi, after her mother passes away. Notaro described the vaguely autobiographical series as “85 per cent real”, noting that the pilot crammed together many of her major traumas from 2012 – a tragic year for the comic.

“My mother died, I had cancer, I had an intestinal disease and couldn’t eat, I went through a breakup, I had pneumonia. The list goes on,” she said at Amazon’s Television Critics Association panel.

As a result, the season will become more fictional as it continues, she added.

She was joined at the panel by co-star John Rothman, exec producer and writer Kate Robin and Nicole Holofcener, executive producer of the pilot and series director. They also presented a new trailer for the series:

The show will premiere on Friday 9th September – and will mark the beginning of a month-long season of comedy, with Amazon debuting four shows in a row, one week at a time.

On 16th September, Amazon Prime Video will release Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s sitcom Fleabag in the US – in the UK, this is available to stream for free on BBC Three right now. That release marks the second UK comedy that Amazon has snapped up as a US original, following its acquisition of the American rights to Channel 4’s Catastrophe.

Transparent Season 3 will then debut on Friday 23rd September, with Woody Allen’s Crisis in Six Scenes following on Friday 30th September.

“I think it’s an experiment,” said Joe Lewis, Amazon Studios’ Head of Half-Hour Programming. “Each show can bring its viewers to other shows.”

He added that if the idea works, Amazon may launch new shows in a similar manner.

“It’s a tough subject for any comedy to deal with, and Tig’s first-hand understanding gives her script (co-written and co-exec produced with Diablo Cody) a heartfelt pathos and downbeat vibe that feels far more sincere than many comedian-led series,” we wrote in our review of the pilot. “Director Nicole Holofcener, who has history with the awkward and the painful, is a perfect fit for the material, finding laughs and sadness in even the final moments of Tig’s mother’s life, as she wheezes for breath in hospital. There’s a gentle sway between dark and light that feels very familiar, but still makes for moving – and amusing – viewing, without shying away from the question of finding one’s way in the world in the wake of a huge loss.”

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