Sort Of

Sabi is set on changing their life. They really should leave that part-time nanny job behind. They really should dump that homo-ish boyfriend of theirs. They really should move to Berlin with their BFF and start a newer, queerer life abroad. But then, as always, life gets in the way. Where by “life” we mean an accident that forces Sabi to choose the kids they nanny (and their hapless father who’d tried to fire Sabi days before and now struggles as his wife sinks into a coma) over their own brighter future. Is the choice one of comfort? Of convenience? Might it offer this Pakistani-Canadian would-be electrician a new lease on life, one centered, however improbably, on a nuclear family of sorts? Starring the delightful Bilal Baig, who co-created the show with Fab Filippo, Sort Of takes this somewhat simple sitcom-sounding premise and spins it into a dry-humored Millennial coming-into-one’s-own story. Sabi’s deadpan demeanor not only sets the tone for this CBC-produced comedy but it embodies the way the character wrestles with feeling outside of their own life, their aloofness having calcified into an armor they soon find melting away the more they open themselves up to the world around them. For its blazingly original comedic sensibility and its tender portrait of a queer nonbinary individual embracing the multitudes they contain within, Sort Of wins a Peabody Award.