The competitive program of “Pilot” included a series with the modest title “About That Thing,” as if protecting viewers who have already seen enough sex in various forms. Quiet Mitya (Denis Vlasenko) doesn’t seem like someone whose childhood was spent among village toughs, but perhaps we don’t know everything yet—it’s not for nothing that he chose a rather spicy medical field, which he hasn’t yet told his family about.
The Prodigal Son Returns
As often happens, a doctor in the family is a source of pride, but there’s a catch. When Mitya returns to the village of Ozernoye, hopes are pinned on him by the woman in labor, the grandmother with an ever-growing medical history, and everyone else. But at the long, laden table, Mitya confesses: he’s a psychologist-sexologist, which means he won’t fix teeth or set a dislocated knee.
Denis Vlasenko as Mitya in a still from the series “About That Thing”
Education vs. Ignorance: A Clash in the Countryside
Created jointly by Comedy Club Production, TNT, and PREMIER, the series uncompromisingly discusses the topic of education in the hinterlands. People in the provinces probably still apply a licked plantain leaf to a wound, but what’s worse is that they use ascorbic acid as a contraceptive. Both as a pill and “down there” too.
Each topic and team of writers has its own humor, so mentioning those involved in the series is no accident. The creators deliberately diagnose the residents of Ozernoye as uneducated villagers who don’t even understand how the reproductive system works. “About That Thing” will fit seamlessly into the channel’s lineup, where all the humor revolves around people’s shortsightedness. The problem is that at “Pilot,” the series was juxtaposed with the documentary almanac “Lights of a Big Village” about life in remote villages, where theaters are being built and ideas for further development are being hatched. Although the writers try to label the locals as absurd, the stigma sticks to Mitya. The newly minted doctor, returning from his sophisticated St. Petersburg, hopes to change the archaic attitude towards sex in one fell swoop. As they would say in Ozernoye, he studied at the university but didn’t gain any sense.
Denis Vlasenko as Mitya in a still from the series “About That Thing”
A Fish Out of Water?
Mitya doesn’t try to find an approach to the locals: instead, he tells a little girl about real pistils and stamens and lures residents to a sex education lecture by handing out free reference materials.
Mitya is invited to Tel Aviv, but the promising doctor stays in the rural clinic as a psychologist and generally behaves strangely. At the first meeting with his former love (Valeria Repina), he gets flustered, and half an hour later he’s howling about his feelings under her door. He buys up contraceptives at the nearest pharmacy to distribute to those in need, but doesn’t realize that he’ll be pelted with eggs for such obscenity.
Denis Vlasenko as Mitya in a still from the series “About That Thing”
The Pitfalls of Stereotyping
The main problem of the series is the categorical division into educated and not so educated. While Mitya is trying to reason with the villagers, his peers from big cities, judging by the news reports, also need sex education. As “Sex Education” showed, even erudite British schoolchildren can have intimate questions. But perhaps for the creators of the series, a St. Petersburg resident admitting ignorance is beyond the realm of fantasy.
So far, the conflict is unresolved: the psychologist-sexologist doesn’t plan to come down to earth, and the residents of Ozernoye are not ready for enlightenment by force. With the right treatment, participants on both sides will be able to reach an idyll, but only if the creators finally stop exaggerating the lack of education that has affected remote settlements like a virus.