[3] Thom Payne (Steve Coogan), a depressed middle-aged man, is confronted with new, younger bosses at the advertising firm at which he works in Woodstock, New York.

His wife, Lee (Kathryn Hahn), is an artist who angrily struggles with balancing her work and motherhood.

Shalom Auslander first pitched the show, then titled Pigs in Shit, to Showtime in fall 2011, and spent more than a year trying to get Philip Seymour Hoffman on board to play the lead character.

Auslander has said that Hoffman expressed interest in the show from the start, but the casting was held up due to "endless lawyering."

Part of the pilot was filmed at a house in the Byrdcliffe Art Colony, and additional locations were scouted in the neighborhood.