There’s a particular flavor of social awkwardness or social strife in shows and movies that hits me hard in a weird squirmy spot a little below my diaphragm. It spreads from there, worming around inside me, usually moving upwards. It’s a profoundly distressing and uncomfortable experience, and it happens most often in certain kinds of dramas, social comedies, or romances.

This experience has been with me since I was a child. I can still remember wriggling in my seat on the couch while watching movies, turning myself upside down and standing on my head as I tried to untwist or escape the awful tension inside me. I haven’t yet learned precisely what kinds of awkwardness and strife cause this, perhaps because I try to avoid the experience as much as possible, but it crops up time and again.

Unfortunately, Trying hit that spot.

That’s too bad, really. I thought the first episode was consistently funny, even as it teetered between sweet and almost-painful in that squirmy way. If the second episode hadn’t hit me so hard, I think I would have continued really enjoying the show. Let me explain:

My news feed recommended this show to me repeatedly, calling it “as good as Ted Lasso.” I can see why! There’s a lot to like here.

Trying is a comedy (and a drama, but not one of those dreadful depressing dramedies) on Apple TV. It follows a British couple who very much want to have kids—hence the title. When they discover that they’re infertile, they turn to adoption.

The main characters are flawed but lovable people doing their best to get by. I found them easy to sympathize with, even as I sometimes wanted to shake them and tell them to stop carrying the idiot ball. But despite their fallibility, or perhaps because of it, they feel very real and human. In fact, in many ways, that excellent characterization that I loved so much in large chunks of Ted Lasso’s cast feels present here.

This isn’t the post for talking about how I felt like a number of the players in Ted Lasso, especially the non-white ones, got shortchanged in their characterization. I’ll just point that out and leave it there for now.

Back to the positive: as in Ted Lasso, so many characters in Trying who are given more than a bit of attention from the camera feel like they’re gradually turned into a developed whole. I love seeing that over the course of just two episodes, and I love seeing the foundation laid for even more of it. And when you combine that wonderful characterization work (something that has to be a collaboration between writers, actors, directors, and editors) with delightful comedy that doesn’t punch down… it’s great!

This show is great—except it’s not for me.

I know that I can power through the awful feeling to see what happens next. I’ve done that before. I also know that I might enjoy more of the show. I have no idea whether rewatching an episode that bothered me, knowing what to expect, might let me feel a different experience. Sadly, based on past attempts to power through, I know that even after finding narrative resolution to whatever situations make me squirm like that it still takes a while for that feeling to fade. Resolving the story’s squirm-inducing issue doesn’t resolve the squirm.

I don’t know why I work this way, but I do. I’m pretty sure I’ve been this way since I was a little kid. I’m certain this has been a big part of what pushed me towards my love for adventure stories; those narratives usually don’t have much squirm in them.

If you don’t have that same awful feeling when watching social dramas, or if that feeling isn’t so acute as to repel you, then Trying might be fun. If you have the same experience I do, check it out anyway because it’s good. But do so forewarned, and at your own risk.