Airdate: Enlightened

Next month Showcase premieres HBO’s Enlightened.

Created by Mike White and Laura Dern, the offbeat drama stars Dern as a beauty expert who has a very public meltdown and returns to her life after 3 months recuperating in Hawaii.

There are 10 episodes with Showcase set to air double episodes each week.

The show has already been renewed for a second season.

Enlightened centres on Amy Jellicoe (Dern), a 40-year-old woman who returns home to California after a month’s stay at a holistic treatment facility, a result of having a mental breakdown at work triggered by her self-destructive ways.

Amy returns to her old life with a new cultivated approach and perspective, which includes daily meditation and exhorting the power of self-help and inner healing. Though Amy wants to be an “agent of change” in the world, the people who know her best are sceptical of her latest intentions. She moves in temporarily with her somewhat-estranged mother, Helen (Diane Ladd, Dern’s real-life mum), and reconnects with her ex-husband Levi (Luke Wilson), who is struggling with his own demons and addictions.

Once a buyer in Abaddon Industries’ Health and Beauty department, Amy is rehired, but assigned to a demeaning position in data processing, run by the flaky Dougie (Timm Sharp). However, while in this new position, Amy uncovers a range of corporate abuse and corruption occurring at Abaddonn, which ultimately fuels her quest to make a change in the lives of others, as well as validating her own change.

8:30pm Sunday January 15.