This photo of off-brand Dr. Pepper sodas...

has nothing directly to do with what I'm writing about today. I just really enjoy Dr. Pepper and I couldn't find a decent picture to represent anything else.*

I don’t often watch the Emmy Awards. I never know when they’re taking place. And because I live in Los Angeles, I see “For Your Consideration” billboards all over the place, like all year long, so I have this vague, unformed idea that they’re always happening and also maybe just happened or even happened three months ago and nobody bothered to change the billboards. There was a billboard up on Sunset Boulevard for a Harry Potter movie that came and went and then that billboard just lingered for years. When it went up people thought JKR was still in her right mind and by the time it finally came down she had a head full of wasps.

I watched the Emmy Awards last night. Alonso was out of the house at a movie and I was looking at red carpet outfits and then kept looking. A friend texted me. He had never heard of host Nate Bargatze. I explained Nate Bargatze. I watched Hannah Einbinder become a gif. And then Jeff Hiller won an Emmy for his role on Somebody Somewhere.

Somebody Somewhere aired the final episode of its final season in December of 2024. Now that it’s September of 2025 and because I thought the Emmy Awards had somehow already happened and because all of the billboards around my part of the city were for The Bear and Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel announcing that he was voting for Stephen Colbert, I didn’t know Somebody Somewhere was nominated for any Emmy Awards.

I don’t feel excitement when watching award shows. I think it’s exciting for the winners, but it’s not my win. I don’t feel what people feel when they watch sports. Jeff Hiller is not a football team. But I felt a twinge of excitement for him because he won the award for a TV series I really love.

Last night’s recognition was deserved, so I wanted to tell you to watch Somebody Somewhere. It lasted three seasons, beginning in January 2022. A total of 21 episodes. All of them more or less sitcom-length. No tricks like that 70-minute-long wedding episode of The Bear.

It’s about a group of middle-aged misfits in a small Kansas town. “Sweaty” middle-aged people, as Hiller said in his acceptance speech. Straight people. Queer people. The cast is wonderful, with Hiller and co-creator Bridget Everett at its core. It’s a comedy-drama focused on the small details of life, about the relationships people have with siblings, parents, friends, the community.

I grew up in a string of small towns like the one depicted, and the show doesn’t sweeten or condescend to that life. It's cinematic, but also not insufferably Good For You. There’s a steady through-line of grief inside the comedy. It vibrates with the loneliness that can happen anywhere, the desire to be loved and understood, the connections people try to make and maintain. You might cry.

There are too many good TV series to watch, and too many people telling you to watch those good ones. This is a very good one, and if the push to "catch up" on those good ones feels like homework, just put it on your to-do list and be casual about it. It won't age badly. And if there's a lesson hidden in the show, it's one that will keep: wherever you live, if you sometimes have that nagging feeling that you’re nobody from nowhere, you aren’t.

*But you know what? Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco, Texas, and the last good "Dublin" Dr. P I drank was in the very small town of Hico, Texas. So now I think it fits.