Sort Of: The Quietly Radical Canadian Series You Should Watch

Sort Of is a Canadian comedy-drama series streaming on HBO Max. Created by Bilal Baig and Fab Filippo, it first aired in 2021 on CBC Gem. A third and final season completed the run in early 2024. If you missed it, now is the right time to catch up. The show just quietly became one of the best queer series of the decade.

Premise

Sabi Mehdi is Pakistani-Canadian and gender fluid. Sabi works as a nanny for a white Toronto family. At night, Sabi tends bar at a queer hangout called The Hole. The show follows Sabi navigating two worlds at once. Family expectations pull from one side. Queer friendships and identity pull from the other. The premise sounds simple. The execution is anything but.

Bilal Baig plays Sabi and co-wrote the entire series. That dual role shows. The character feels lived-in and real. This is not a coming-out story. Sabi is already out. The show asks harder questions than that. What does it mean to belong? Where do you actually fit when you straddle multiple communities?

What Works

Baig's performance is the clear highlight. They carry every scene with ease. The writing is precise without feeling written. Conversations feel like actual conversations. The humour lands because it comes from character, not from punchlines.

Director Fab Filippo uses Toronto as a full character. The city looks unglamorous and recognisable. That choice matters. Most queer TV is set in New York or London. Sort Of belongs to a neighbourhood you can actually name.

The supporting cast is strong across the board. Supinder Wraich plays Sabi's best friend 7ven with real warmth. Amanda Cordner brings depth to Violet, one of the family Sabi works for. The child actors are unusually good. Nothing feels staged.

The show also handles grief and illness without melodrama. These storylines run underneath the comedy. They give the series genuine weight. You feel the loss when it comes. That is rare in half-hour television.

Critics noticed. The Guardian called it "one of the most tender shows on television." It won multiple Canadian Screen Awards. It was also long-listed for international Emmy recognition. For a small CBC co-production, that is a significant footprint.

What Works Less Well

Season two loses some momentum in the middle episodes. A few storylines feel stretched. The pacing occasionally drifts. Some scenes go on slightly too long without adding new information.

The final season wraps things up neatly. That is satisfying, but it also removes some of the productive uncertainty that made earlier episodes compelling. The show is less interesting when it has clear answers. Its strength is sitting in the uncomfortable middle.

Viewers outside Canada may also find the cultural references slightly opaque. The show does not explain itself. That is mostly a strength. Occasionally it leaves you slightly outside the frame.

Who Is This For

Sort Of works for viewers who want character-driven television. It is not plot-heavy. If you enjoyed Pose: The Series That Changed Television Forever, you appreciate queer TV that takes its time. Sort Of rewards that patience. It also works for viewers tired of big dramatic coming-out arcs. Sabi's queerness is not a problem to solve. It is simply who Sabi is.

The show is also genuinely funny. This is not issue television dressed up as comedy. It is comedy that happens to take queer life seriously. That distinction matters. For anyone interested in how queer identity and immigrant family dynamics intersect, this is essential viewing. It joins the small group of series — alongside newer queer productions — that treat LGBTQ+ life as ordinary, complicated, and worth examining closely.

Sort Of is one of those rare series that knows exactly what it wants to be. It is small in scale and large in feeling. Three seasons, each around six episodes. You can watch the whole thing in a weekend. You probably should.