There She Goes is a British comedy-drama television series created and written by Shaun Pye, and based on his own experiences with his daughter who was born with a chromosomal disorder.
Emily is trying to get excited about her favorite night of the year – Simon's annual pub quiz, as Rosie distracts her by constantly making her draw a copy of a new picture they've hung up, Yves Tanguy's The Invisibles.
A combination of being physically forced to repeatedly draw The Invisibles and unwanted attention from an interfering do-gooder threatens to drive Emily totally insane.
Rosie Yates is now 13 and is starting to display increasingly challenging emotional and physical behaviour, veering wildly from joyous obsessions with the letter X, tigers with Xs on their nose, ticket barriers and Fedex lorries to sudden violent outbursts directed at both her parents and herself.
Written by the married couple Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford, the programme is based on real-life events with their learning disabled daughter Joey ("Jo"), who was born in 2006.
[4][5][6][1] Pye would regularly make Facebook posts about funny incidents involving Jo, to positive feedback from friends, leading him to consider that the topic could be suitable for a sitcom.
[8] Sarah had a considerable role in the writing of the show, with her and Pye having lengthy conversations about the darker period of their life, which the 2006 timeline is based on.
[9] Jessica Hynes and David Tennant were cast as parents Emily and Simon Yates, having worked together on the science fiction programme Doctor Who in the past.
Crawford said that it was based on their family's experiences in early 2020, when they underwent "the most poignantly funny moments, painfully difficult lows and exhilaratingly uplifting highs of life with Joey".
The website's consensus reads, "There She Goes is a gently mirthful and moving exploration of a family unit doing their best to cope with disability, offering a mature view on the issue along with lovely performances.
Segal commented that the "gallows humour might be a bit tough for some viewers to stomach", but praises that the parents are presented as loving whilst still sometimes acting poorly.
[20] Sean O'Grady of The Independent also gave the show four out of five stars, praising the "searing emotional honesty" and the "sensitive and engaging" acting of Hynes and Tennant.
[16] Joel Keller of Decider praised Pye for demonstrating that Simon "can be a total prat" at times, calling the programme a "very realistic and balanced look" at parenthood which any parent can relate to.
[24] Whilst Saskia Baron of The Arts Desk approved that the parents were not "impossibly warm and saintly", she found that some of their dialogue made for "uncomfortable viewing" and recommended "more consideration of the feelings of learning disabled people and perhaps their greater involvement".
However, Baron praised the programme's "ring of complete authenticity" and hoped that it would "[make] viewers think before rushing to judgement next time they see someone with unusual behaviour".