So right now HBO has no fewer than four half-hour comedy shows currently winding up their seasons as small reminders not to cancel your subscriptions to the network. The network’s current bread and butter are big ticket dramas like True Blood, Game of Thrones, and the also-in-season Boardwalk Empire and so it’s doubtful anyone will get (or cancel) HBO solely based on these four lightweight comedies the way subscribers might have for Sex and the City and The Larry Sanders Show back in the day. The dirty secret is that most of these shows aren’t really comedies and a couple hardly ever attempt to be funny. Still, most succeed in what they set out to do with various degrees of success…
Hung: This is the most inconsistent of the four shows as you just never know what you’re going to get from week to week. Will it be a dreary dud of an episode that doesn’t do anything to move the plot, characters, or humor forward or will it be a decent ep that raises the stakes for all three? Hung suffered from a sorry second season but seems to be back in good form this season as the titular male prostitute finally gains more confidence and tries to fend off a younger rival. The show still needs to seriously evolve Jane Adams’s uber-flaky “pimp” (who always looks like she’s one bad day away from a nervous breakdown even in good times) and there is now NO need for Anne Heche (as Ray’s ex-wife) or Ray’s two sullen kids to still be on the show. But they’ve moved the show away from Ray’s domestic life and as a result we’re seeing an improved third season that’s finally having fun. Grade: B
How To Make It In America: This is one of those HBO “comedies” that isn’t funny and barely tries to be. The show is like Entourage before the guy’s made any money and if they were into NYC fashion instead of L.A. acting. Unlike Hung, HTMIIA benefits from a constantly moving-forward plot but really suffers from a lack of deeper characters. It just feels like we’re watching people do things and most of those people (more or less all of the core kids except for possibly Victor Rasuk’s smooth hustler Cam) aren’t all that interesting or even likable. The show desperately needs an Ari Gold or even a Johnny Drama to breathe life into it, and for a long time that character was Luis Guzman’s ex-con-trying-to-go-straight-businessman Renee Caulderon. Most of this season stuck Renee in a terrible storyline involving a whiny, materialistic single mother/hip-hop model he was trying to romance, but the end of the season rallied with Renee facing off against a more sophisticated shakedown artist played by Eric La Salle. The last two episodes made up for an otherwise weak season and told the hard truth that whether it’s a local hoodlum or a high end fashion merchandiser, there’s crooks on every corner. Grade: B
Enlightened: Another “comedy” not all that concerned with making people laugh but for entirely different reasons. Where as Hung wants to explore a little capitalism and a lot of sex and HTMIIA wants to explore…well…a lot of capitalism and a little sex, Enlightened is going for something deeper entirely. In fact, the show works best when going for the drama. While I cringe when the lead character (Laura Dern’s Amy who is trying to become a good person in a world that doesn’t necessarily value that) tries to communicate with people that don’t want her around–the show’s primary comedy–I’m more easily won over when the show takes its premise seriously and she’s actually out doing good works instead of talking about good works to people who couldn’t care less. And Luke Wilson is good as Amy’s drug addicted ex-husband who refuses, without ever going into “drugs-are-bad” after-school special territory, to change. Grade: B
Bored to Death: Easily the most comedic of all four shows and the one that succeeds most often at trying to make me laugh. A lot of jokes on this show are cornball but how can you resist a comedy about an amateur private detective whose best friends are Zach Galifanikiscan’tspellhisfuckingname and Ted Danson? Still, its strength is also its weakness as Bored to Death has gotten to be in the biggest rut of all these shows mostly because the characters haven’t evolved much from the first episode, but when they’re having as much fun as these three clearly are, why would they want to change much? Grade: B
Supporting Scene Stealers: Wow, my reviews of those shows wasn’t very helpful for those that only have time to watch one or two as I gave all of them the same grade but for different reasons. None of the shows have much in common except that they’re pretty-good-but-not-great, so maybe pointing out the supporting scene stealers will help serve as a tie-breaker. How To Make It In America loses as it STILL has Lake Bell’s annoying, completely unnecessary ex-girlfriend character and the show seriously undervalued Luis Guzman’s MVP for most of the season. Bored to Death has to forfeit as the show really doesn’t have a supporting cast, it’s got Jason Schwartzman in the lead and Zach and Ted Danson as co-stars but no other main cast. Enlightened is the newest of the four shows and hasn’t developed much of its first-season supporting cast except for Luke Wilson’s sardonic druggy ex. And so Hung might win this one by default except that for every strong supporting character they have (Rebecca Creskoff’s scheming rival pimp, Lennie James’s sly thug Charlie), there’s one that sucks (more or less everyone from Ray’s personal life including his ex-wife, his kids, his ex-wife’s estranged husband, his ex-wife’s mother-in-law, his ex-wife’s estranged husband’s new girlfriend, etc.). If given the choice between Luis Guzman, Luke Wilson, Rebecca Creskoff, and Ted Danson…I guess you gotta go with Danson just out of career-achievement respect for being so good in Cheers, CSI, and especially Damages.
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