"Why is it the older and more experienced you are, the less desirable you get?" ponders Liza in Younger (Neon), the breezy comedy from Sex and the City creator Darren Star. Her friend wonders if she's talking about her husband, who has just left her for a younger woman. She means finding a job. Liza, like Sutton Foster, the Broadway star who plays her, is 40, going on 26.
That's the ridiculous-sounding premise behind this light but surprisingly likeable New York-set show, based on the novel by Pamela Redmond Satran. Foster could probably get away with playing a teenager and she gives Younger its quirky allure, even if the show is full of stereotypes. Her character is struggling financially, (because women always rely on their husbands), so Liza needs to find a job.
Having been out of the workforce for years raising her now-teenaged daughter (a boho type who wants to save the world), no one wants to hire her, choosing perky young graduates instead. This may not exactly match the experience many Millennials face in getting a job straight out of uni. But it's on board with the idea that women often feel invisible as they get older.
When Liza's hit on by a 26-year-old thinking she must be about his age, she decides to pretend it's true, 24/7. "I'm from ... over the bridge," she says, explaining why their paths haven't crossed.
With her new makeover sussed, and her Gen Y crushes rehearsed - Katniss Everdeen and Harry from 1D - she winds up with a gig at a publishing house, working for Diana Trout, a sort of OTT Devil Wears Prada character, and an irritatingly put-together 20-something named Kelsey (a suitably smarmy Hilary Duff).
