There’s certain creatives whose careers you’ll follow to the ends of the earth based on the success of even a single project. After Raphael Bob-Waksberg wrapped up one of the best comedies of the 21st century with Bojack Horseman in 2020, it was all but inevitable that I’d tune in for whatever he decided to do next. With Long Story Short – which drops its entire first season now on Netflix – Bob-Waksberg further hones his already sharp comedic voice in a more grounded world. Ya know, one without talking animals.

Whereas Bojack focused on Hollywood satire in the most extreme comedic methods, Long Story Short is a time-hopping, family-oriented sitcom. The show mostly follows one Jewish family, the Schwoopers (this isn’t actually the family’s real legal name, just a cute inside joke mashing up the parents’ names of Schwartz and Cooper) as they unpack their shared trauma together. Most of season 1’s 10 episodes follows a close formula: a cold open from one of the Schwooper kids’ childhood, with the bulk of the episode taking place much later in their adult lives.

Like most Jewish families depicted in media, oldest son Avi (Ben Feldman), middle daughter Shira (Abbi Jacobson), and youngest Yoshi (Max Greenfield) inherit their trauma from living under the thumb of their mother, Naomi (Lisa Edelstein). If you’ve seen even one family dramedy about a Jewish mother-son relationship, you’ve seen some version of Naomi already. That is, she’s often manipulative, impossible to please, and judgmental, not just to her kids but to any of their potential romantic partners. Long Story Short season 1 provides plenty of comedic situations for Naomi, but it never feels truly original or personal since the doting Jewish mother stereotype is so pervasive across media.

Where the show excels is in Bob-Waksberg’s specific point of view. Long Story Short season 1 never reaches the silly highs of Bojack Horseman, but it comes close, and utilizes the same goofy-but-smart wordplay that the latter deployed so eloquently. Consider this back-and-forth between Yoshi and childhood friend Baby Feldstein (Gina Rodriguez): “I must have left it at the po-tah-to place.” “You say po-tah-to?” “Somebody has to!” Each of the 10 episodes throughout season 1 contains several of these brilliantly stupid exchanges, and the show’s voice cast always rises to the occasion. But more than the situational comedy, the show revels in its deep characterization.

In his middle-aged years, Avi is a divorced dad to Hannah (Michaela Dietz) and is still trying to balance being a good father and keeping a close relationship with the rest of his family, and reckoning with the loss of his faith later in life. Of course, his mother is more than ready to blame it on his marriage to Jen (Angelique Cabral), a non-practicing Christian. Shira is a free-spirited lesbian married to late-in-life Jewish convert Kendra (Nicole Byer), as they raise twin boys. Yoshi is the show’s chaos agent, not dissimilar to Aaron Paul’s Todd from Bojack, and his entanglements with stoner buddy Danny (Dave Franco) are season 1 highlights. The family’s father, Elliot Cooper (Paul Reiser), is deployed perfectly, if infrequently, as an absent-minded enabler to Naomi. It feels cliche, but the show never forgets to remind us that, despite all their dysfunction, this is a family that ultimately loves and admires one another, even if they have trouble saying so out loud.

The look of Long Story Short shouldn’t go unmentioned; simpler in style than Bojack, as if one of the members of the Schwooper family has sat down and illustrated their own story. Backgrounds are simply shaded, but still contain enough sight gags to keep your interest. There’s an old-school elasticity to the character designs that helps with some of the more cartoonish developments, and the show’s animators have a lot of fun with it, like when Yoshi becomes an unwitting part of a pyramid scheme selling mattresses that pop out of tubes.

This doesn’t mean the show is all hijinks, of course. Bob-Waksberg’s superpower is in finding the sadness amongst the silly, and Long Story Short continues that streak. Yes, there’s an episode where Hannah’s school is literally overrun by wolves, and the school’s PTO is more concerned with banning Charlotte’s Web, but the episode deftly becomes a melancholic look at Avi’s desperate attempts to be a good father. Another bright spot comes as the show focuses on Kendra, her bid to climb the corporate ladder of a Chuck E. Cheese knockoff restaurant, and how she stumbles into Judaism.

Early in season 1, I began to wonder how far Bob-Waksberg could stretch Long Story Short‘s premise into the already-promised season 2. Indeed, the show already spans nearly every phase of its main characters’ lives, so how many more nooks and crannies can be found? But as the season goes on, it’s clear that the creative team has enough tricks up their sleeves to expand on the already solid foundation we see. Only time will tell if Long Story Short will ultimately be mentioned in the same effusive breath as Bob-Waksberg’s previous Netflix series, but I can’t wait to tune in and find out.

Long Story Short season one premieres on Netflix on August 22 with all episodes available to stream.