I was late to discover Younger, the quirky romantic sitcom set in a glamorous New York publishing company. It was never big in the UK, so it took a move to the US and a chance recommendation from a new friend (thanks Sarah!) to introduce me to the delights of Liza, Maggie, Josh, Diana, Kelsey, Lauren and Charles. It took some finding, buried at the back of the Paramount Plus streaming library, but I'm nothing if not tenacious when hunting down a show or movie I want to watch. And then, after all that hunting, just a few months later it landed on Netflix (Tubi, in the UK) where lucky viewers can now just hoover it up with ease. Clearly, they are taking the show to their hearts — it's starting to feel the Netflix effect, hitting their most-watched TV charts just a few weeks after it launched on the streamer. It has a 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes!
Younger is the story of Liza Miller (Sutton Foster) a 40-year-old, almost-divorced mom, who fakes her age to get back into the workplace. After interviewing at a number of companies Liza soon realizes that no one in the cutthroat world of publishing she once worked in has the slightest interest in hiring a 40-something, with a 20-year career gap, even for a junior assistant position. But when a cool young tattoo artist, Josh (Nico Tortorella) bumps into her in a Brooklyn bar and mistakes her for someone his own age, the chance encounter sets off a hilarious chain of events… Best friend Maggie persuades Liza to shave a few years (well… decades) off her real age and head back into the job market. And so she lands a role at Empirical Press, working for the VP of Marketing — the ice queen with a heart of gold — Diana Trout (Miriam Shor), becoming firm friends with Kelsey Peters (Hilary Duff), a hard-working, hard-partying, bright young editor, learning the business, falling for two wildly different men (I’m "Team Josh" forever) and in the process becoming so much more than the New Jersey mom and housewife she was at the beginning of the series.
Younger: Team Josh, Team Charles or Team Kelsey?
As with many of the best comedies, there’s a romantic rivalry at the heart of Younger. In Season 1 Liza begins to date cool, young, tattoo artist Josh but, since the course of true love never runs smooth, there’s a wrinkle in the form of Liza’s boss — the debonair “tall drink of water”, Charles Brooks. Liza is torn between the excitement and chance of new beginnings she feels when she's with Josh and the security and shared interests that she has with Charles. And then there's the sense of purpose and the opportunity to forge her own path that she gets from her friendship with her work bestie, Kelsey. Each pairing has its own tribe of passionate fans (I’m firmly "Team Josh" and you won’t convince me otherwise) and the writers kept us on tenterhooks all the way until the final episode to find out which team goes the distance.
Why watch Younger?
Romping through seven jam-packed seasons (all thriller, no filler), Younger is consistently good fun. It stuffs each 30-minute episode with more colorful characters and witty one-liners than most shows manage in a full season. The tight-knit group of work colleagues, friends, clients and lovers are so warm and relatable (up until the slightly clunky, off-its-game covid-impacted final season) that you'll wish you knew them.
Like Friends, this show just gets better and funnier the more time you spend with these people and know their quirks. The “age reversal” concept never feels too far-fetched (it helps that Sutton Foster looks so good you'd be fooled too) but it’s a constant source of sly humor. A binge-watch of Younger really is one of the best treats you can give yourself. I think I’m going in for a rewatch...
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