It's television. If they don't make most of the characters at least a bit 'over the top', it won't generate any interest. So the characters all have to have some sort of issue whenever we see them. No one wants to watch normal people doing normal things with no problems. So they over do it.
I had trouble watching it for that reason. For me, I would have been satisfied to just see how Maura deals with her situation. But it seems like they try to view EVERY single thing as if when a trans person is involved, it's so very different and filled with conflicts.
So yes, seems everyone in the show is a caricature of what normal folks of that type would be; it appears to be written that way intentionally. The best way I could explain it, would be that we all know that women speak with more tonal range than men do. But when you hear a feminine gay man speak, he does it with even MORE tonal and dynamic range than even an excited women does, all to differentiate himself from other men, in all cases, even when it's nor required. It seems that all the people in most of these shows do that, and they do it all the time, as if we're going to forget that they're either trans, or have to interact with a trans person differently than they do anyone else; then, not to be incomplete, they behave with 'anyone else' just as over the top as they did with the trans person.
So. It's all just too much. All the stereotypes seemingly are done over the top, too.
I watched the first season, and it was hard to get through. I have no desire to watch any more.
All the show does, is support the stereotypes for the rest of the world to see, and that makes outsiders who watch, think we're nuts.
