Several of my friends recommended this show. I finally succumbed and within a couple minutes I was hooked. The whole thing was absolutely hilarious. The Hitler comment and the Jewish parents. Richard Lewis and his girlfriend and all the tension that that brought. Larry's wife going way beyond appropriateness in bringing her girlfriend and Larry back together to discuss something so sensitive. Anyway, there are time when things get so convoluted it's virtually impossible to crawl out of a hole.
6 Reviews
Solid Start, but a bit predictable.
Graggoz22 October 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Funny, entertaining start of this show.
Only concern is that they might over-use these typical Seinfeld scenarios where one clumsy social thing (in this instance referring to his wife as "Hitler" while more than he thought overheard the conversation) and then covering it up by a lie, only to have to lie once again only to have it all revealed in a socially embarrassing setting. These long twists just may not work out as good in this show as it's trying to appear realistic.
Don't get me wrong, I really love them but I think they need to work on keeping them plausible and not have to many of them in each episode. In short, this episode consisted of 3 different of those twist, namely:
1. Larry's pants fake erection => Cheryl's friend feeling convinced it was genuine.
2. Larry having an argument with a random woman on the cinema, which turn out to be someone a friend of him is dating.
3. Larry referring to his wife as "Hitler" to Jeff => Jeff's sensitive Jewish parents overhearing this => Covering it up by a lie => Lie detected by coincidence.
Although I guess all of these coincidences are plausible individually, it is sort of hard to swallow that three of those occurred during this period of time (which I get the impression is supposed to be something like one week).
Trust me, I do realize in order to make entertaining situational comedy there is a certain need for these coincidental twists, but I found that even though number 1 and 2 are OK and they work out fine, especially the third one just makes it a bit over the top of what we can absorb as far as regarding the show to be a realistic description of Larry's everyday life.
When Larry and Jeff agree for a cover-up story about the "Hitler" event to prevent Larry's wife figuring out he called her Hitler, we all know this is going to end up with Cheryl somehow figuring out that Kathy Griffin in fact never had made the phone call the lie was constructed around. It was too obvious and although a funny final scene, it sort of ruin the show's basic idea of being a truly genuine and improvised description of everyday scenes from Larry's life.
I think they are good at showing Larry's personal desire to get everyone to like him but at the same time feel he is entitled to confront anyone who he finds act somewhat inappropriate no matter how insulting it may be for the person to hear this, often making him appear outright rude or having double standards regarding his own behaviour compared to others behaviour. This is really great stuff and they should focus more on that.
I think this combination of desires are something many can identify themselves with and it has a great potential alone to create funny incidents.
What I hope they keep on showing is Larry's great way of ridiculing social norms, such as in this episode:
* The complex science of restaurant table reservation. * How people act as if it's the end of the world if they have to stand up to let someone into their row at the cinema. * The excessive urge people have to make formal apologizes for minor inconveniences, often without even really knowing why. * The complex nature of acting appropriate in the presence of friend's parents.
This is really great stuff I think and I hope they will emphasize more on those aspects and try and avoid making to many complicated and unrealistic twists stories that, although funny, make the show lose much of it's realistic feel.
So all in all, a solid episode, but just hope they in future episodes manages to keep the apparent sense of realism they are trying to make you sense.
Only concern is that they might over-use these typical Seinfeld scenarios where one clumsy social thing (in this instance referring to his wife as "Hitler" while more than he thought overheard the conversation) and then covering it up by a lie, only to have to lie once again only to have it all revealed in a socially embarrassing setting. These long twists just may not work out as good in this show as it's trying to appear realistic.
Don't get me wrong, I really love them but I think they need to work on keeping them plausible and not have to many of them in each episode. In short, this episode consisted of 3 different of those twist, namely:
1. Larry's pants fake erection => Cheryl's friend feeling convinced it was genuine.
2. Larry having an argument with a random woman on the cinema, which turn out to be someone a friend of him is dating.
3. Larry referring to his wife as "Hitler" to Jeff => Jeff's sensitive Jewish parents overhearing this => Covering it up by a lie => Lie detected by coincidence.
Although I guess all of these coincidences are plausible individually, it is sort of hard to swallow that three of those occurred during this period of time (which I get the impression is supposed to be something like one week).
Trust me, I do realize in order to make entertaining situational comedy there is a certain need for these coincidental twists, but I found that even though number 1 and 2 are OK and they work out fine, especially the third one just makes it a bit over the top of what we can absorb as far as regarding the show to be a realistic description of Larry's everyday life.
When Larry and Jeff agree for a cover-up story about the "Hitler" event to prevent Larry's wife figuring out he called her Hitler, we all know this is going to end up with Cheryl somehow figuring out that Kathy Griffin in fact never had made the phone call the lie was constructed around. It was too obvious and although a funny final scene, it sort of ruin the show's basic idea of being a truly genuine and improvised description of everyday scenes from Larry's life.
I think they are good at showing Larry's personal desire to get everyone to like him but at the same time feel he is entitled to confront anyone who he finds act somewhat inappropriate no matter how insulting it may be for the person to hear this, often making him appear outright rude or having double standards regarding his own behaviour compared to others behaviour. This is really great stuff and they should focus more on that.
I think this combination of desires are something many can identify themselves with and it has a great potential alone to create funny incidents.
What I hope they keep on showing is Larry's great way of ridiculing social norms, such as in this episode:
* The complex science of restaurant table reservation. * How people act as if it's the end of the world if they have to stand up to let someone into their row at the cinema. * The excessive urge people have to make formal apologizes for minor inconveniences, often without even really knowing why. * The complex nature of acting appropriate in the presence of friend's parents.
This is really great stuff I think and I hope they will emphasize more on those aspects and try and avoid making to many complicated and unrealistic twists stories that, although funny, make the show lose much of it's realistic feel.
So all in all, a solid episode, but just hope they in future episodes manages to keep the apparent sense of realism they are trying to make you sense.
I thought I'd start at the beginning....
AlsExGal7 April 2024
As I just have had time to watch the very last season of this show and had to contend with reviews saying it wasn't nearly as good as it once was. So I wanted to see for myself.
So apparently Larry is married to Cheryl when the show first starts. Everybody in the show plays themselves with a few exceptions. Richard Lewis is himself. In the next show Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen are themselves. There is a departure in some cases. Cheryl is not really Larry David's wife and there are other cases such as Louis Nye not being Jeff Garlin's father.
So Larry David really is the creator of Seinfeld here, so he is a minor celebrity. He's enough of one that he has no money problems and lots of leisure time, and he's not such a celebrity that he requires private security to move him securely from place to place.
In this first episode you'll recognize the kind of absurd situations that occurred in Seinfeld - Larry's pants form a "tent" when he sits down that looks like an erection and a misunderstanding results. Larry gets put on speaker phone talking to his manager and calls his wife "Hitler" not knowing that his manager's parents are in the car with him and are offended by the reference. A nasty encounter with a woman on the aisle seat at a movie theater ends up intersecting with his friend Richard Lewis, and so on.
So far it seems like brilliant stuff. It's the kind of material Larry David couldn't get away with on Seinfeld, although he did push the envelope even on that network show.
So apparently Larry is married to Cheryl when the show first starts. Everybody in the show plays themselves with a few exceptions. Richard Lewis is himself. In the next show Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen are themselves. There is a departure in some cases. Cheryl is not really Larry David's wife and there are other cases such as Louis Nye not being Jeff Garlin's father.
So Larry David really is the creator of Seinfeld here, so he is a minor celebrity. He's enough of one that he has no money problems and lots of leisure time, and he's not such a celebrity that he requires private security to move him securely from place to place.
In this first episode you'll recognize the kind of absurd situations that occurred in Seinfeld - Larry's pants form a "tent" when he sits down that looks like an erection and a misunderstanding results. Larry gets put on speaker phone talking to his manager and calls his wife "Hitler" not knowing that his manager's parents are in the car with him and are offended by the reference. A nasty encounter with a woman on the aisle seat at a movie theater ends up intersecting with his friend Richard Lewis, and so on.
So far it seems like brilliant stuff. It's the kind of material Larry David couldn't get away with on Seinfeld, although he did push the envelope even on that network show.
Utter chaos
HyperionFlame6 July 2021
What's the point?
jklintestam-271-7168279 November 2021
Zero humor
ypgnps6 April 2024
Neither funny or relatable. This show is incredibly boring. If my spouse brought up some rediculous pants tent I'd tell the the close don't fit and wear something else. Being this dense and naive isn't funny, it's pointless. Trying to watch the first season is more of the same. Some guy.... Makes bad decisions, that are not sensible let alone amusing. Like use a map, go to eat somewhere else, if your friend isn't telling you when to meet just call them. Making bad decisions isn't funny. There needs to be a lick of humor at some point of it's just old and tired and I don't need to pay to see that, I can walk into a grocery store.
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