This project is inspired by my relationship with my father, a small-town Southern pastor. A man who consoled me after my first real break-up by saying, “ya know, I’ve been doing some reading and this is pretty common in the gay world.” The father who, when I moved to New York, gave me a hoverboard for Christmas to save $2.75 on subway fare. The friend who would drop everything to be by my side in a crisis and stay way too long after the dust settled.

After my mother's death, I was able to offer my father the same level of care he provided. While dining at the upscale eatery, The Olive Garden, marinara splattered all over my father’s shirt. He looked at me with concern and I said, "I'll take care of it." At that moment, I realized I had inadvertently been promoted to homemaker.

The playing field had been leveled and that’s the heart of this show. It’s a father and son doing their best to parent each other while navigating life after loss.

-Blair Peyton, Writer/Lead

Our goal with Farther Along is to find fresh new ways to tell stories about queerness in Southern, religious families. We didn’t want the Mitchums’ main point of tension to be Wesley’s sexuality. That story has been told several times over. Instead, we wanted to show the funny and strange ways love can exist between a father and son who struggle to understand each other.

This is the crux of the comedy in Farther Along. Wesley, Harvey, Christina each bring a completely different point-of-view to their family unit. And when these points of views collide, the result is a whiplash of shock, confusion, annoyance, and delight. Our approach to heighten the emotional clashes relies on a face-paced edit, use of comedic whip pans and cutaways, and strategic time jumps in the narrative.

For co-director MJ Bernier (One of Many), Farther Along is an opportunity to bring her documentary directing experience to narrative. In crafting the story, MJ led with authenticity. She focused on grounding performances in real emotions, and keeping an eye on regional details. For co-director Emily Draper (Sorority Court), Farther Along presented a chance to direct a comedy that she didn’t write herself. She aimed to use her background as a sketch comedian (UCB, Edinburgh Fringe Festival), to heighten the humor of the moments she loved most in Blair Peyton’s script.

Farther Along is a series for gays and allies, those looking for a little levity to break through their grief, and anyone who has a complicated relationship with their regional accent. Our end-goal is to pitch it as a series to comedy networks so it can touch more families like the Mitchums.

-MJ Bernier & Emily Draper