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Remember when things were nice?
The world allowed for now-endangered feelings like “hope” and “optimism.” That was even reflected in the pop culture we consumed. TV shows weren’t praised based on how bleak or cynical they were. And, if they dared be earnest or silly or encouraging or cozy, they weren’t mocked.
It can seem like an alternate universe. That’s why I’m so grateful the series Trying is back.
Each year when an email lands in my inbox that the Apple TV comedy is returning, the sigh of relief I let out sounds more like a wailing exorcism of all the *stuff* going on; that’s how much I need it.
Now in Season 5, Trying delivers the hands-down best vibes on television, carrying the baton from shows like Parks and Recreation, Schitt’s Creek, and Ted Lasso—before that latter one’s sunniness was bullied by the extremely online—and sitting alongside Shrinking, though without as much intense emotional devastation.
It stars Esther Smith and Rafe Spall as Nikki and Jason, a couple living in London who, struggling to conceive a child naturally, embark on an adoption journey that now has them raising a teenage girl and her younger brother—stumbling and (mostly) smiling through the trials and tribulations.
Trying deals with some of the heaviest things in life—marriage, parenting, and mortality—but it’s also just so lovely. Nikki and Jason are such a supportive couple. The family and friends around them are among the most peculiar yet dearest cast of characters. They are doing their best, facing every gutting, unmooring challenge with as much humor and strength as they can muster.
The series has accrued a passionate community of fans, rallying around how, for its slightly idealistic and utopian portrayal of family life, it is so relatable. How it reveals that life can be, not become a broken record, nice.
“We live in a 24-hour news cycle culture where, in our pockets, is a constant representation of the worst of humanity,” Spall told me. “I think that a show which shows us the opposite, the very real reality that reflects, to me, a truth that humans are inherently good, that most people want to do the right thing, and people deal with difficulty and tumult with humor and love—I think it’s the reason the show has sustained.”
“People describe watching it like getting into a warm bath,” he adds. “And the longer the show goes on, the more that you’re basically hanging out with a group of people you like.”
I spoke to Spall and Smith a few weeks before Trying’s fifth season premiered July 8, each giddy to talk about why their quiet gem of a show resonates so much with its fans.
It’s not that Trying is some modern-day Leave It to Beaver in which little turmoil exists and everyone is tucked into bed with a smile and a kiss, no lingering problems weighing on them.
Nikki and Jason’s path to adoption was, at times, excruciating, testing their relationship and their willingness to continue the exhausting, dejecting work to become parents. They have their own insecurities and existential crises as they reach middle age. And, as in life, every time it seems as if things have settled, the boat is violently rocked; this season, that’s the arrival of their daughter’s birth mother.
“Adoption story and parenting story aside, I think a lot of the show is about ordinary people just trying to navigate whatever life throws at you, whether it’s good or bad,” Smith said. “They’re not bad people. They’re just people, and they’ve got flaws. But they do meet things with humor, and I think as a unit, as a family, they’re just lovely characters to be in the company of.”
For Spall, who has appeared in movies such as I Give It a Year, The Life of Pi, and Men in Black: International, the six years he’s been working on Trying is the longest consecutive gig he’s had—and, for the London-born actor, the character most blessedly close to himself.
He told me a story about how, when the opportunity for this show came along, he was on the set of the movie Just Mercy, in which he played the district attorney of Alabama.
“I was just about to pull out my Alabama accent as the only Englishman for a thousand miles around,” with stars Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, Brie Larson, and a few hundred extras all in the room, he said. “I was so, so nervous that I looked down at my tie, and it was physically moving on my shirt; my heart was beating so loud. I remember being like, ‘I just want to do a show where I can use my own accent. This is so exhausting.’”
Then an email about Trying arrived in his inbox.
“I love doing it because it means I haven’t got to play the racist district attorney of Alabama, even though that was a great part and I loved making it,” he said. “Still, it’s nice to play someone who’s very close to myself. And it’s nice that I get to hang out with Esther, who’s now my partner and the mother of my baby.”
That’s right. Since Trying launched in 2020, life has imitated art for its stars.
After Spall divorced from his wife, with whom he has three children, in 2021, he and Smith got together. The couple had their own child together in 2024, creating a modern family that is very much on theme with the series.
For fans of the show, Nikki and Jason are what the kids might call “couple goals.” (Or do they anymore? Am I just old?) People who watch desperately want a partnership like theirs. They both want to be a dad and husband like Jason, and find one to be with. Vice versa with Nikki.
Now, for the actors, there’s the surreal layer of playing the characters who are “couple goals,” and then going home after shooting as actual partners themselves.
“It’s weird, isn’t it? That’s a mad one,” Smith said. “That’s all we’ve really known, really. After work, we go back home, and I’m still staring at the same face, but I call this face Rafe, and at work I call that face Jason. It’s an interesting dynamic to live two experiences as a couple.”
For Smith, becoming a mother midway through Trying’s run has made the experience of playing Nikki “weighted with something different.” And Spall is grateful that playing Jason’s approach to fatherhood as he himself experiences has struck a chord with viewers.
“We live in a time where there’s a lot of discussions about the shape of masculinity, what masculinity means, and the impact that it has on the world,” he said. “So I think it’s really nice to get the opportunity to show a lot of the positive aspects of masculinity. In fathering and in its grounding, solid nature. I love that. I’m a father in real life, so to be able to bring the best aspects of my fathering to the screen is really lovely.”
“Families mean different things to different people,” he continued. “In my own life, Esther and I have a baby together, and have three children from a previous marriage. My family is no less beautiful than that, and no less complete.”
The relationship between the actors and their characters on the show is symbiotic; there’s a lot to learn from how they navigate the stress of raising a family and apply it to their own lives.
“When s--t hits the fan and bad things happen, it’s how you meet it and how you respond to it,” Smith said. “If you can meet it with a sense of humor and know that if it’s a bad thing going on in your life, that’s not permanent.”
“Tumult and difficulty have deepened me as a person,” Spall said. “I think that’s good to remind audiences of as well, that difficulty is what defines you. It’s what makes you a better citizen, I think.”
You know what else I think could make you a better citizen? Watching Trying. Folks, it’s just so nice.
