Curb Your Enthusiasm - C or D?

i'm gonna be a negative nancy and say i was very underwhelmed. i used to love the old show, and it was basically more of that. so it should have been good, right? but i didn't laugh at all. i don't know if i have changed, or if comedy has changed, or wtf has happened, it's very disorienting.

haven't seen it, looking forward to seeing it, but.... Larry David has a tendency to get formulaic after a while. I like the formula, and all, but can easily see this being not better than the previous season.

seemed like a good warmup episode. get all the gears oiled and moving again

xxp season 8 felt that way to me, but this felt like a decent first episode

season 8 had some classics though, "Palestinian Chicken" in particular

haven't seen the new ep yet, looking forward to it

This was kind of an overly cosy, slighty lazy greatest hits, but I still laughed a lot.

Felt like it was trying to cram a bit too much in (that scene with Susie at the end was particularly rushed) and I dunno, a lot of the humour felt a bit forced. This show is a lot funnier when Larry is only unintentionally a dick.

To me this is the shift in CYE from the early seasons to some of the later ones. Larry just becomes more of a dick. I remember when that happened to Homer in The Simpsons it also became impossible to watch.

Not quite as bad with Curb.. but there was a drop-off.

The Guardian gave this five stars so I was immediately suspicious (same for Dunkirk and Blade Runner, what a bunch of shits)

yea but when Homer became a dick the writing fell off in a major way too. I think the last two seasons of Curb were probably the funniest

You can probably explain it away by saying that without Cheryl in his life he has no incentive to NOT be a dick, but watching people shout at Larry is funnier when he's trying to be well-meaning while also being selfish and clueless.

Also am I right in thinking that Ted and Mary are still together in real life? There's a lot of potential in a newly single Ted Danson this time round.

The best curbs (and the best seinfelds too) have always been the ones where the 2 or 3 seemingly unrelated plot threads come together somehow for the climax, in that sense alone this wasn't a classic. But also when your two key themes are lol lesbians and lol muslims and it's 2017 that just feels a bit....uh.

(and yeah I know it's actually lol larry is a dick about X, rather than lol X, but those are still two pretty lazy and dated topics to go to).

the foisting concept was the key theme of the episode

Because it was the one they used for the title? Didn't feel key in any other sense unless I'm missing a ton of subtext or something.

I guess it seems key because it is the one concept in the episode that is at least a bit creative and more characteristic of the show. it is certainly one of the at least 4 plot lines happening throughout the episode (dead pet condolence maybe the fourth?). I'm not sure that any of these are key in the sense that they unlock subtext in the others. But I didn't watch that carefully.

Episode seemed pretty ridiculous to me, along the lines of many later era Curb episodes that were utterly implausible. Had a bit of "victory lap" feel to it unfortunately. A lot like later era Seinfeld, show is a lot more caricature than stories about awkward stuff that happens to actual humans.

Still, I'm sure there will be good stuff sprinkled throughout the season. Agree that show is funnier when Larry isn't *trying* to rig the game and be an ott dick.

yeah, I think there's likely not much difference between this episode and the last season, which I didn't like very much. But I watched seasons 5-8 at once, and the time away before this season has made me more forgiving.

just saw the Fatwa episode. pretty funny! yeah not as good as the classic seasons but still pretty good. i enjoyed Richard throwing that joke back to him.

there were a few moments where i was like "Oh i know where this is going" and felt like it was about to be by-the-numbers and then was pleasantly surprised. like when he went on Jimmy Kimmel i thought for sure he is going to accidentally talk about foisting and get into trouble w his ex assistant that way. lol what actually happened.

episode 2 was fantastic. "You’re doing too much. Valedictorian. Now you want to be pickle boy!"

I loved it too

Leon for me has turned into one of the most enjoyable tv characters ever

lol yeah the pickle gambit was pretty funny to see in action, as silly an idea as it was

episode 3 seemed to hone in on the inconsequential rabbit hole David is going through this season. The argument with the cook was key, this is micro semantics and bias at its finest -
arbitrary stakes

Elizabeth Banks = A+, I love her. Her lying monologue was awesome.

The plotting seems more contrived and less tight than in previous seasons, which is a shame. Still plenty of good laughs.

Jeff's character is gross and not enjoyable given the weinstein stuff. and Garlin was always so awkward with and about women on his podcast. Otherwise, I am enjoying the season. I am writing "breakthrough" in my notebook.

Yeah i've been getting Weinsteinish vibes from Jeff this season, but it's pretty much entirely down to timing. Though he's cheated on Suzie in the past hasn't he?

Suzie getting back at him by getting a new house was great tho

yeah and jeff's face while eating a cookie in the elevator

This season feels like all of David's friends are growing increasingly weary of him, with the exception of Jeff. It's been pretty cringe at times

this season is dark and bitter compared to previous ones

I wouldn’t say dark but, yeah, for the first time Elvid seems alone, left behind by his friends who seem to have settled their various neuroses.

This was the first episode to have lots of non-Leon LOLs. "Patient-Doctor Confidentiality" was A+.

"Don't tread on me, mutha fuckas!"

CURB BACK

this season is dark and bitter compared to previous ones

― Treeship, Sunday, October 29, 2017 11:46 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually disagree with this; i think he looks like he's visibly having a blast a lot of the time, and my favourite moments are throwaway bits of conversation, just him bullshitting and kvetching with jeff

classic episode. top ten

This season feels like all of David's friends are growing increasingly weary of him, with the exception of Jeff

No matter how tired of Larry they get, it will never be tired enough:

Richard Lewis - The neediest man alive
Leon - Gets to live in an awesome house for free
Funkhauser - Thinks Larry is his best friend and will forgive him anything
Ted Danson - Gets to be the high status male

I would be fine with this whole show being LD, Leon, and Jeff's wife bitching at both of them

Jeff's character is gross and not enjoyable given the weinstein stuff. and Garlin was always so awkward with and about women on his podcast.

Otm, this has more or less put my partner off of watching this season.

Larry was so cruel to the security guard. I don’t feel this is true to the spirit of the original series. He was selfish and casually mean but the conflicts were mostly due to misunderstandings

nah i think you're just misremembering earlier seasons, like how is that different from stop-and-chat? (and it was supposed to be harsh; you could see how guilty Larry felt when he actually had to do it!)

i kind of like how un-selfconsciously the show reflects the petty leisurely lives of rich LA assholes, it would be way worse if it were trying to do some critique other than the narcissism of small difference of 'Rich LA assholes who annoy Larry David, a slightly different kind of Rich LA Asshole'

also it has been 6 years(!) since the last season of curb aired; we should consider that maybe It Is Us Who Have Changed

Nah there is a definite shift in tone around Season 4, and again around Seasons 7 or 8 - Larry just becomes more of a conscious dick to people. The comedy in the first few seasons arises from Larry trying to do the right thing and/or taking shortcuts due to his essential selfishness and laziness.

I didn't enjoy this last one very much, both the setup and the arguments felt very forced, and there was too much going on in it to let most of the minor characters breathe and be funny. The episode with Lewis's art exhibition was fantastic though.

Episodes like 'The Doll' or 'The Corpse-Sniffing Dog' are classics because Larry is well-meaning and blundering before he becomes belligerent. It's just less funny (not to mention being lazier writing) when the argument begins with Larry walking up to a minority character and going "lemme ask you something..." before saying something offensive and getting bawled out for it.

I keep thinking about Larry's ultra-obnoxious "ta-da" when he caught the grape in his mouth.

spottie OTM

Never watched this when it aired, but borrowed all past seasons thru the library over course of a few months. Obv liked it enough to stick with it, but by season 6 or 7 it was very samey. got grating. "ok for the love of god can't he just have 1 normal interaction with someone? does everything have to devolve into an absurdist comedy of manners? does there need to be a Seinfeld-ian disection of every single tiny social convention?". Seeing them all in a row really highlighted that there's really just one "joke" being told over and over in slightly different way. Felt like the latter seasons were so naked about doing that.
Really like LD and liked this show a lot to begin with, so just wanted him to do more. Still better than 98% of tv comedy.

tbh "I like this thing you're doing but... honestly, can't you maybe do something else once in awhile?" is a very Larry David-esque complaint.

I guess it's just running out of GOOD versions of doing "his thing". Scrapping the bottom of the barrel.