Curb Your Enthusiasm

Like its fellow HBO series Sex and the City, this half-hour comedy broke some TV rules and went from critics' darling to an award-winning series in three years. Curb Your Enthusiasm is the brainchild of star-creator Larry David who co-created Seinfeld and was the basis for the easily rattled George Costanza (who was played by Jason Alexander). Like George, David has a tendency to speak too much, blow things out of proportion, and, most often, fail in the end (and often liking it that way). David's new show is also like its predecessor: it's about "nothing" except following the day-to-day ramblings of a sometime writer and comic (this time in L.A.). Eternal questions stemming from universal daily dilemmas are honed to perfect comedic absurdity. A notable exception is the show is only scripted by plot; much of the action is improvised. The first season starts with a one-hour mockumentary following David's return to stand-up for the first time in years; the other 10 episodes follow a more traditional sit-com setup. David plays "himself" (as does his friend, Richard Lewis) although his manager and wife are played by comedians Jeff Garlin and Cheryl Hines. Although this first season is a comedic gem, one can't take more than an episode or two at a time--it's acidic, biting comedy. The episodes are often built like a house of cards, which the irritable David will surely collapse by the end. Like another caustic TV character, Dabney Colman's Buffalo Bill (1983-84), Larry David is not for everybody.
The second season is more of the same, and for fans, that's a good thing. The closest thing to an arc is David's season-long pitch to the networks for a new show starring former Seinfeld stars Jason Alexander and Julia-Louis Dreyfus. Each network is lampooned, especially HBO, which David has a bad history with in this alternate world. Sure to repel those with soft funny bones, Curb's acerbic comedy allows jokes where David is accidentally framed--if ever so briefly--as a child molester, wife abuser, or murderer. But for those who do love his shtick, there are big laughs, especially when we bump into characters as unbridled as David, like a fellow writer who is quite protective over his dad's invention, the Cobb salad. Many comic actors pop up, some as "themselves" (Richard Lewis, Rob Reiner) and others as characters (Rita Wilson, Ed Asner) along with the delights of co-stars Cheryl Hines as David's wife and his affable manger, Jeff Garlin. There are several touchstone bits: what a thong brief can do to a relationship, a run-in with pro wrestler, Larry's first baptism, and one very collectible doll. To pick one episode to capture this second season--and its grandstanding nature--it would be "Shaq," in which the NBA star is accidentally tripped, changing David's usual bad luck with gut-busting results. --Doug Thomas

The third season of HBO's comedy sensation offers more of the same. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," to quote Larry David's other television series, a certain little sitcom called Seinfeld. Consequently, Curb Your Enthusiasm's junior year means more Larry and more of his hilariously embarrassing mishaps. It also means more of his patient spouse Cheryl, avuncular manager Jeff, Jeff's foul-mouthed wife Susie (Susie Essman), and assorted celebrity pals, including Richard Lewis, Ted Danson, Wanda Sykes, Paul Reiser, and Martin Short, all playing themselves (or, like Larry, versions thereof). The theme that (loosely) ties these 10 episodes together is Larry's involvement in upscale eatery Bobo's, in which Danson and Michael York (yes, that Michael York) are co-investors. As expected, the restaurant will serve to complicate Larry's life in every conceivable way--and vice versa. But the funniest (and most profane) episode must surely be "Krazee-Eyez Killa," starring Chris Williams (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) as the fidelity-impaired gangster rapper to whom Wanda has become engaged. This riotous installment, which sends up Jewish, Italian, and African American gangsters alike, won an Emmy for Robert B. Weide's direction and features that old master-of-direction himself, Martin Scorsese, who first appeared in "The Special Section" (in which Larry bribes a gravedigger to relocate his mother's gravesite). It's also the episode in which Larry gets a hair stuck in his throat. That hair, which once belonged to someone rather close to him, will remain lodged there for the next several episodes, until a "divine intervention" in "Mary, Joseph and Larry" dislodges it once and for all--along with the last of Larry's dignity.

He never learns. In the fourth season of his award-winning HBO comedy series, the quasi-fictional character of Larry David continues to say--and do--whatever he wants whenever he wants. In the first episode alone ("Mel's Offer"), in which Mel Brooks offers him the role of Max Bialystock in The Producers, David offends a doctor, a lesbian couple, a wheelchair user, and Ben Stiller (by not shaking his hand after he sneezes). Then, in the second ("Ben's Birthday Party"), he offends a blind man--by telling him his girlfriend's not as hot as she claims--and pokes Stiller in the eye with a skewer while attempting to show agent Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin) his new golf move.
Larry continues to offend Stiller until he drops out of The Producers and, in the fifth episode ("The 5 Wood"), David Schwimmer (Friends) steps in. The following episode ("The Car Pool Lane"), in which David attends a Dodgers game--with a prostitute, so he can use the carpool lane--made history when it set an innocent man free. Unused footage from the show, entered into evidence by the defense attorney, confirmed his client's alibi that he couldn't have committed a murder because he was at the game (alas, the Braves still trounced the Dodgers). Other guests include Ted Danson ("The Weatherman"), Russell Means ("Wandering Bear"), and Gina Gershon ("The Survivor") as a Hasidic hottie. In addition, the hour-long season finale ("Opening Night") boasts a bevy of stars, including David’s old colleague Jerry Seinfeld, Nathan Lane (Broadway's original Bialystock), and fellow Tony Award winner Anne Bancroft (The Miracle Worker). As they've done since the early days, Cheryl Hines (Cheryl David), Susie Essman (Susie Greene), and Richard Lewis and Wanda Sykes (as themselves) do what they can to keep one-man demolition derby David in check. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

The cover art for HBO's comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Fifth Season implies that the series' star Larry David is Everyman. Larry is not Everyman; in fact, he is far from it. Somewhat of an amalgam of the Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer characters he co-created for Seinfeld, yet so uniquely Larry, his socially inept behavior is the basis for and the best part of the show. This fifth season holds no exceptions to the world oblivious to social graces that is Larry David's. Larry tackles some tough issues, his main conundrum being the fact that his close friend Richard Lewis (comedian Richard Lewis playing himself) needs a new kidney. Season 5 slants towards Larry's soul searching: will he take the donor test? Is he a match? What will he do if he is a match? We see how far Larry will go to help his friend in need: staging car accidents, fake marriages, and more. We think we see some depth to Larry when he suspects he may be adopted and cheerfully embarks on a search to find his "real" parents, but are reminded how things really are, when he throws morality out the window, striking up a friendship with the known sexual predator in the neighborhood in order to improve his golf game. Of course there is the very Seinfeld feel to this show in general, the tone, the self-involved lead character--and in the first few episodes there are actual storylines and even spoken lines taken almost verbatim from Seinfeld episodes, so much so that an avid Seinfeld fan may start to lose patience. Stick with it, though, because the Seinfeld-ian similarities wind down through the second half of the season and the Curb your Enthusiasm hilarity revs up.

Throughout Curb Your Enthusiasm's fifth season, HBO's master of passive-aggression went in search of his roots. In the sixth, Larry returns to his old tricks--to the relief of fans who felt the show was losing its way. As usual, most scenarios revolve around problems unique to neurotic millionaires. Larry's voice of reason, wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), continues to save him from himself (when she can). This time, the 10-episode arc turns to Roots when the Davids take in the Blacks, a family of African-American hurricane evacuees, including Loretta (Vivica A. Fox) and her brother, Leon (an uproariously profane J.B. Smoove). Naturally, "L.D." offends other groups along the way, like an Asian gentleman ("The Anonymous Donor"), a chemotherapy patient ("The Lefty Call"), a deaf woman ("The Rat Dog"), and tennis-player-turned-comedian John McEnroe, a group unto himself ("The Freak Book"). During the year, Larry also tangles with an X-rated dessert, an unsympathetic senator (Rep. Barbara Boxer as herself), an inebriated chauffeur (Toby Huss), the infinite superiority of Ted Danson, and the usual games of one-upmanship with Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin), Richard Lewis (himself) and Marty Funkhouser (Bob "Super Dave" Einstein, brother of director Albert Brooks).
Since Curb Your Enthusiasm takes its inspiration from David's real life, the big news arrives when Cheryl, a character based on environmental activist Laurie David, walks out on him. Then their friends pick sides. Thereafter, things really start to go downhill, resulting in some of Larry's funniest faux pas ever--until R&B vocalist John Legend steps in to save the day. Not literally, but his soulful singing sets the scene for the surprisingly sweet finale. Extra features include a live conversation between David and Susie Essman, a sixth year featurette ("On the Set"), and a gag reel.

Art continues to imitate life to squirm-inducing effect in Curb Your Enthusiasm's seventh season. Now divorced, Larry (creator Larry David) lets agent Jeff (Jeff Garlin) talk him into a Seinfeld reunion. He convinces the old gang to participate--Jerry, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards--but mostly he hopes to win back Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), who longs to play George's ex-wife (Jerry would prefer guest stars Meg Ryan or Elisabeth Shue). Seinfeld fans are in for a treat when George's mother, Mrs. Costanza (Estelle Harris), and neighbor Newman (Wayne Knight) drop by for rehearsals. In the show's boldest move, Richards's taped tirade at a comedy club in 2006, which set the Internet on fire, plays into the season's story arc.
When he isn't working on the script with Jerry, Larry hangs out with Leon (J.B. Smoove), tries to find a way to break up with Loretta (Vivica A. Fox), and discovers the benefits of dating a "wheelie" (in David's scenes with Seinfeld, the two often appear on the verge of cracking up). Of course, it wouldn't be Curb if Larry didn't step into a few minefields along the way, including an awkward plumbing problem, an inappropriately bare midriff (not his), a 9-year-old texting buddy (talk about inappropriate!), a dessert war with Ted Danson, a misunderstanding with Mocha Joe, and in a nod to the musical West Side Story, a real-life Officer Krupke. If some episodes are funnier than others--"The Black Swan" features one death too many--Curb comes through in the finale, in which Larry's jealousy of Jason's relationship which Cheryl gets out of hand. A fine addition to the L.D. canon, the season also offers the immortal line, "I'm Larry David, and I happen to enjoy wearing women's panties." --