編劇兼制片人莉茲·費(fèi)爾德曼曾經(jīng)為艾倫·德杰尼勒斯、奧斯卡頒獎典禮以及包括《破產(chǎn)姐妹》（Two Broke Girls）在內(nèi)的眾多情景喜劇編劇，擁有好萊塢最令人羨慕的喜劇事業(yè)之一。然而，她迄今為止最受評論界好評的作品《麻木不仁》（Dead to Me）也是她最壓抑的電視劇之一（甚至是有史以來最壓抑的劇集之一），這說明了什么？

“我們生活在非常黑暗的時期，很難不去想這種可能性——終有一天，黑暗會吞沒一切?！?/strong>費(fèi)爾德曼說，她為Netflix寫的這部暗黑喜劇聚焦珍（克里斯蒂娜·艾伯蓋特）和朱迪（琳達(dá)·卡德里尼）之間的友誼，珍是一位悲傷的母親，有兩個孩子，朱迪卻剛好是殺死珍丈夫的兇手?！八劳鍪亲钇帐赖闹黝}。如果你達(dá)到了某個年齡，肯定經(jīng)歷過喪親之痛?！辟M(fèi)爾德曼說。她把自己不孕的掙扎和表兄突然去世的悲傷融入了這部劇?！白鳛橐幻骷?，我必須把這些故事講出來?！?/p>

在去年的黃金時段艾美獎上，亞馬遜充滿陽光的復(fù)古風(fēng)格喜劇《了不起的麥瑟爾夫人》（The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel）獲得了喜劇類最佳劇集獎（有人說，部分原因是多年大熱劇《副總統(tǒng)》沒有參選）。之后的九個月里，關(guān)于死亡、來世、悲傷的電視劇數(shù)量已經(jīng)達(dá)到了臨界值。亞馬遜的《永遠(yuǎn)》（Forever）、Netflix的《輪回排隊(duì)》（Russian Doll）、美國全國廣播公司（NBC）的《好地方》（The Good Place）等喜劇以不同版本的來世為主題，而Netflix的《麻木不仁》、《柯明斯基理論》（The Kominsky Method）和瑞奇·熱維斯的《身后事》（After Life）則構(gòu)成了悲傷三部曲，憂郁主題原本只是偶爾使用一次，用于搭建“極特殊的劇集”，現(xiàn)在卻成為了整部劇作的故事主干。

Having written for Ellen DeGeneres, the Oscars telecast and numerous sitcoms including Two Broke Girls, writer-producer Liz Feldman has one of Hollywood’s most enviable comedy careers. So what does it say about the genre that her most critically-acclaimed creation to date, Dead to Me, also is one of the most depressing shows, maybe ever?

“We’re living in very dark times, and it’s hard to not think about the eventuality of that darkness overcoming everything,” says Feldman, whose pitch-black Netflix comedy centers on the friendship between Jen, a grieving mother of two (Christina Applegate) and Judy (Linda Cardellini), who happens to be the woman who killed the former’s husband. “Death is the most universal theme there is. If you’re a human of a certain age, you’ve experienced loss,” says Feldman, who channeled her personal fertility struggles and grief over the sudden death of her cousin into the series. “As a writer, I had to get these stories out of me.”

In the nine months since last year’s Primetime Emmy Awards, when Amazon’s sunny, retro comedy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel won Best Comedy Series (aided, some say, by perennial favorite Veep’s absence from the race), shows about dying, the after-life, and grief have reached critical mass. From comedies like Amazon’s Forever, Netflix’s Russian Doll, and NBC’s The Good Place, which center on versions of the afterlife, to Netflix’s grief-themed trifecta Dead to Me, The Kominsky Method, and Ricky Gervais’ After Life, morose themes once employed as a “very special episode” one-offs are now backbones of the storytelling.

Outside of a few series—ABC’s whimsical one-hour comedy Pushing Daisies and HBO’s groundbreaking but never Emmy-winning mortuary-family-drama Six Feet Under, for two—TV has feared the reaper. “There’s long been a sense that viewers don’t want to think about death,” says NPR’s TV critic Eric Deggans. “But now we’re in a landscape dominated by streaming companies who crave specific audiences. The acting opportunities that come with death-focused storylines have energized writers, especially of half-hour series, to make these themes their series’ dramatic engines.”

The appeal of darkness-tinged comedy isn’t new to Emmy voters, who have long embraced genre-defying entrants in the comedy race. Los Angeles Times writer Howard Rosenberg noted the trend toward what he called “traumadies” as early as 1987, when Michael J. Fox won Best Actor in a Comedy for a groundbreaking episode of NBC’s Family Ties where his character grieved a friend’s death. And in the decades since, dozens of drama-leaning comedies and performances have taken home gold in the comedy categories, including FX’s Atlanta, Nurse Jackie star Edie Falco (who, upon accepting her Emmy in 2010 for the Showtime series, proclaimed, “I’m not funny!”), embattled Transparent star Jeffrey Tambor, and last year’s winner Bill Hader, who scored gold for playing the titular assassin in HBO’s Barry.

But this year, voters have a decidedly more existential-themed crop of series to consider. This is thanks in some part to creator Michael Shur’s critically-acclaimed, slow-burn hit The Good Place—which premiered in 2016 and is slated to expire this fall—having paved the way for more comedies that Deggans says use death and grief as a means to explore “ethics and what it means to be a good person in super-absurd environments.”

Russian Doll co-creator and star Natasha Lyonne says her protagonist Nadia Vulvokov, who perishes over and over (and over) again while trying to solve the mystery of her death, ultimately is looking for a reason to exist. “The show isn’t so much about life or death, but the murky space in between,” says Lyonne, who cites Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning as writers-room inspiration. “We wanted to put Nadia on a journey toward finding a reason to become a participating member of life.”

Armisen says that like Russian Doll and The Good Place, his series Forever, created by Parks and Recreation alums Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard, also takes the afterlife-as-comedy-premise to an unexpectedly grounded place. “I’ve had couples tell me the show has brought up healthy conversations for them, like what does ‘Til death do us part’ really mean?’” says Armisen. “I think these shows have resonated with people because they’re really about the human condition, perseverance and even optimism.”

Whether Academy voters are ready to cast their ballots on June 24 for this year’s wave of “traumadies” will be revealed when nominees are announced July 16. But as of press time, nearly all 19 critic-journalist pundits featured on awards-prediction site Gold Derby predicted Russian Doll, The Good Place, and The Kominsky Method (with a few also favoring the season’s freshest contender, Dead to Me) will take on the category’s frontrunner in its final year of eligibility: HBO’s three-time winner Veep.

Regardless of whether her series lands on the ballot, Feldman says fan response to Dead to Me, which Netflix renewed for a second season on June 3, signals an evolution in the relationship between a show’s logline and a viewer’s emotional experience.

“Yes it’s a show about death and loss, but it’s also about the friendship and comfort that get us through those things,” she says. “Hopefully that’s what people have connected with, and what will make them want to keep watching.”