Goodbye, United States of Tara

Showtime's United States of Tara is billed as a comedy, but it's arguably one of the most thought-provoking shows on TV. Unfortunately, next year's TV lineup will be a little less thoughtful. The cable network just announced that Tara will be ending this year after the third season. What a bummer.

Tara is about a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (formerly known as, and probably better known as, Multiple Personality Disorder). Toni Collette plays the lead character, and she's brilliant in the role. She won an Emmy in 2009 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and a Golden Globe in 2010 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series for her role as Tara.

Tara is the first TV series that has ever tackled the subject of DID, and, although there have been some episodes that probably seemed completely absurd (and perhaps insulting) to those who have the disorder, the series has brought a lot of attention to DID.

What I love about this series is that it focuses not solely on Tara's disorder, but on her life as a wife and mother. That is a far different approach than previous movies on the topic such as Sybil and The Three Faces of Eve, which focused on the women's disorder and their therapy. Tara also attempted to inject humor into the situation, which earned the show both praise and criticism.

I'll be sorry to see it go.