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There are, broadly speaking, two types of television shows: the ones that make stars and the ones made by stars. The former includes the ensemble productions that turn unknowns into household names – Bridgerton, Euphoria, Industry – as well as the labour-of-love projects that make their camera-ready creators scalding-hot industry property (Fleabag, I May Destroy You, Baby Reindeer). Schitt’s Creek, Dan Levy’s sitcom about a once-wealthy family forced to slum it in a dingy motel in the arse end of nowhere, belongs firmly in this category. Levy, 42, did have something of a leg-up in the entertainment world – he co-created the show with his father, American Pie’s Eugene Levy, who also played the clan’s clueless patriarch – yet for all intents and purposes Schitt’s Creek was a grassroots success story, debuting in 2015 on Canadian network CBC before gradually becoming a global hit after it was picked up by Netflix a couple of years later.
And what about the second kind? Well, these are the ones that couldn’t exist without the first: they are the post-breakthrough, difficult-second-projects made by freshly minted stars such as Levy, who have been handsomely rewarded for the popularity of their dazzling brainchild with a very lucrative streaming contract. Historically, these deals haven’t always seemed like the wisest investment: Amazon has reportedly paid Fleabag Creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge $100m, but a similar blockbuster is yet to materialise. Netflix have had a fraction more luck with Levy, who made a film for them in 2023 called Good Grief – although you suspect a melancholic indie movie wasn’t exactly what the platform was hoping for when they signed up the maker of a rambunctious family comedy for an eight-figure sum.
Big Mistakes, however, probably is. Co-created with I Love LA’s Rachel Sennott (who doesn’t appear in the show), it stars Levy as Nicky, a nervy pastor who is keeping his boyfriend a secret from his family and his flock. He has a cool school teacher sister, Morgan (Taylor Ortega), to spar with, and a highly strung, emotionally incontinent mother (Roseanne’s Laurie Metcalf) to make constant, guilt-trip-tinged demands on him. In episode one, these include procuring a fake diamond necklace for his dying “nonna”. Miraculously, Nicky and Morgan find the perfect item in a gift shop, yet the cashier mysteriously refuses to sell it to them. Because, yep, you guessed it: the necklace is actually real. Morgan doesn’t guess, steals the thing, and her and Nicky are duly hunted down by the criminal gang who are meant to be guarding it.
Why such a valuable asset was on public display in the first place is never properly explained. In fact, much of Big Mistakes doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny; there are too many clunky and implausible developments that exist solely to prolong Nicky and Morgan’s presence in the gangland underworld they’ve stumbled into. The idea of anxious civilians becoming embroiled in organised crime is not a particularly original one (see: Fargo, Ozark, Only Murders in the Building) and here the conceit is rendered in disappointingly vague and generic terms: these bad guys are more tedious than terrifying. The blindsiding final twist – a blatant setup for season two – does provide a momentary thrill, yet even that quickly dissipates when you realise how little sense it makes for the story as a whole.
In other words, this is less a great premise than a passable excuse for Levy to create another bickering, boundary-decimating on-screen family. As Schitt’s Creek proved, it’s where he excels, and the dynamic between the repressed and dutiful Nicky and the thrill-seeking, acid-tongued Morgan is a joy to witness. Levy nails the instant psychological regression that occurs upon reuniting with your adult siblings – the parent-based in-jokes, the petulant squabbling, the opportunity to be wholly honest with and slightly horrible to another person without it affecting your social life – and the pair’s relationship with their other sister, infuriating goody-two-shoes Natalie, is also gleefully well drawn. Meanwhile, the stress radiating from the trio’s overbearing mother amid her disaster-beset mayoral campaign dovetails nicely with the jerky camerawork and abrasive score; needless to say, this knife-edge familial drama is far easier to buy into than the organised crime caper.
The cast are all brilliant. Metcalf swings masterfully between steely authority and papery fragility, Levy is predictably charming and Ortega is downright hilarious (the duo also have enviable personal style: Nicky dresses like an Instagram-friendly Seinfeld; Morgan has a great line in gothic boho chic). The domestic cringe comedy at its heart means Big Mistakes is far from a major error, but it isn’t quite a triumph either. Perhaps that’s inevitable. They may seem like a safer bet for a risk-averse TV industry, but shows made by stars can rarely compete with the ones that make them.
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