Love and loss in Modern Love

HOW DO YOU feel about Modern Love, The New York Times' long-running column on relationships? Do you read it? Do you ignore it? Do you lap up its sentimental takes on budding romances, missed connections, stinging betrayals, belated redemptions and unexpected grace notes? Do you wish its writers would stop navel-gazing and get a reality check by spending a year volunteering at a refugee centre so they'd stop misusing the word "crisis"?

How you feel about the column will probably determine how you feel about Modern Love the TV show, Amazon Prime's 8-episode anthology of love and loss based on the NYT column. The starry cast includes Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, Dev Patel, John Slattery, Andy Garcia and Catherine Keener. Most of the episodes are written and directed by John Carney who's made a name for himself crafting delicate romance movies such as Once (2007) and Begin Again (2014).

Every episode is inspired by a personal essay published in NYT. And to help you make comparisons between what's in print and what's on screen, the episodes have the same titles as the essays - which is to say corny, lengthy titles such as Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am; Rallying To Keep The Game Alive; and The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap. (If you're retching, stop reading.)