Reunions are rare for television series. Shows tend to run for a couple of years and then they’re done, never to be seen again. This must be a rule, because it has some great exceptions to it. Last year’s glorious Twin Peaks: The Return is one of them, offering a third series to a show that originally ran over 25 years ago. And then 2017 also gave us the rebirth of Curb Your Enthusiasm, a show funnier than almost everything else.
Curb Your Enthusiasm is the tv series by and about Seinfeld co-creator Larry David that originally ran during 8 seasons between 2000 and 2011. An absolutely fantastic cringe comedy show that simultaneously makes you burst out laughing and want to shut off your tv and run away. Larry David plays himself, the man who made it big in the entertainment industry because of Seinfeld, and so do most of the characters on the show. Yet all in a very fictionalized version of themselves.
Curb Your Enthusiasm takes familiar events and relatable annoyances from everyday life as the starting point of sketches often ending in highly unreasonable and undesirable behavior. Nothing ever goes smoothly and empathy is the big absentee. Yet, it’s exactly the viewer’s empathetic qualities that make watching Curb Your Enthusiasm such an experience, raising an abundance of conflicting emotions while enjoying it.
Examples? You, want examples? Well, take this scene about this one friend that we all have that just really likes sauce. Where we would all think ‘why bother, let them have it’, Larry can’t help himself and confronts his friend with his feelings about a ‘Save the date’.
Even in a simple snack Larry finds confrontation and conflict. Larry has a talent for creating uncomfortable situations, like this one with ‘Wandering Bear’.
Isn’t it hilarious how Larry always leans on rationality to act unreasonable?
So, you understand we are beyond ourselves that Larry David and HBO resurrected this series for a ninth season last year and a tenth season is on its way.
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