Curb Your Enthusiasm - C or D?

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.

scraping too

nah Matt & other haters r wrong, show is as good as it's ever been and last episode was classic

season 7 is incredible wtf

this show rules and it will always be relevant

David refusing to aid a doctor for comedy relief was an A+ throwback to the sports doctor episode

Inspired by this thread, I started re-watching season 1 to see how/if things had changed. The main surprise was to remember that the show started as a mockumentary, shot on hand-held camcorders. Also linked to that, I re-discovered how much the dialogues were improvised in the beginning. By comparison, modern eps feel much more like a regular sitcom. The humor though hasn't changed much I find.

hah yeah wasn't this show supposed to be a one-off hourlong special

feel like all the actors and esp guest actors in later seasons were going thru the motions of "I'm in a CYE episode. This is how you are supposed to act in a CYE episode. Ok I am now acting like I am outraged/appalled by Mr David's words and/or actions, cause I'm acting in a CYE episode and that's pretty much where the bulk of the comedy comes from. It's pretty cool that I am in this show right now, cause I am a fan of Mr David and this show. I can't wait to watch the episode where I'm actually ON the show and totally pretending to be outraged by that lovable scamp".

“Lamping?”
“There’s no ‘g’.”

When life becomes a curb your enthusiasm episode pic.twitter.com/A5iFZdq0Oe

— Matt Zoller Seitz (@mattzollerseitz) November 6, 2017

Episode 6 the funniest of the season by far.

“Really it’s as if the plane’s not there”
“Are you a magician?”

Hilarious episode. The puckered lip face he makes while Susie talks about the remodeling had me rolling. Also, Funkhouser re: the tapwater lol

It’s like sticking a straw in a frog’s asshole!

Lol yeah one of the great episodes

Susie and Larry scenes were solid in this new one

loving the new season. yeah it's a little more polished and the guest casting is a little more obvious (Elizabeth Banks's "bad acting" was tough to sit through) but still pretty pretty pretty good.

it makes total sense than Cheryl and Ted would start dating. that whole conversation between him and Larry, having Larry call up Mary and get turned down in front of him, was so amazing. the callback to this later was pure gold.

Elizabeth Banks's "bad acting" was tough to sit through

high point of the season so far imo, but I love her

Susie really needs to unleash the fury sometime soon.

The Romanian Uber driver was an amazing minor character though.

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

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, October 31, 2017 9:06 AM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

needs more leon

I enjoy the puzzle like aspect of the intertwining plot lines - all humorous in their own way - and how they ultimately come together.

I was waiting for it to come out that Larry's new gf was Romanian

xp but that hasn't really happened as much this season. lots of plot lines just taper off, and some conclusions come out of nowhere (like the dick-drawing neighbor who didn't show up til the final scene).

Overall, it's been funny though, especially Susie and Leon.

I've been wondering about that -- I'm not sure if it's done to defy expectations or if LD can't get the writing to work out any more.

current season has a more laid back, chatty vibe overall, i think the less dense plotting suits it

The Romanian Uber driver was an amazing minor character though.

― Matt DC

Was gonna say the same thing.

to those that bemoan the lack of plotting, this episode showed it's still connected to the fatwa theme of the earlier eps

this felt like a very deliberate callback/inversion of the Seinfeld finale

the last few episodes have been pretty funny i think. some of the scenes earlier in the season felt particularly contrived -- i.e. larry having an extended argument w/ a stranger about door holding etiquette or whatever -- but these new ones have felt pretty seamless. the yoga episode was really good.

laughing all week about when Susie referred to Eddie Haskell as “an obsequious little shit” and Larry arguing that he had “access to the house”

I didn't understand that joke at all (Britisher).

The sequence with the Muslim guy rounding up Larry's greatest hits was delightful.

starting with ep 4 this season seemed to get a lot better, not sure why the first 3 episodes were so unmemorable but it felt pretty off

kept searching for more links to latest ep cuz i thought they were mislabeled streams of s9e1 starting out with larry expelling the kissing couple from outside his office window

classic episode. Larry's previous house owner coming to inspect his house and see how it's changed is an all-time nightmare scenario

pretty funny ep, laughed out loud at Susie gettin some cowboy shucker action on the DL

Lin Manuel Miranda/Hamilton appearance was funny but also confirmed my "this is the worst fucking garbage ever" allergic reaction to that kind RAP: THE MUSICAL crap.

"It's the shucker's way..."