Having said that... here's some more news

Busy busy busy day in TV land. I mentioned the "Mad Men" July 25 return date earlier, and several other developments have happened since:

• Larry David agreed to come back for an eighth season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" to air in 2011. Basically, HBO extends an open invitation for Larry to continue whenever he wants, and then they wait around for him to say yes. Presumably, he wouldn't be back if he didn't have an idea he thought could top the "Seinfeld" season, just as he came back after TV Larry died and went to Heaven, or after TV Larry joined the Black family.

• NBC has renewed "Parenthood" for next season, which pleases me. I haven't written about recent episodes due to vacation and/or the problems of it airing while I'm busy trying to analyze "Lost," but overall the show's doing more good than bad, and I'd like to see more.

• Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert signed contract extensions with Comedy Central to continue "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" through the 2012 elections.

And that's all... for now, anyway. The way this day's going, I expect six more renewals or premiere dates to be announced before I go home.

UPDATE: And, of course, I was right. FX just announced that the penultimate season of "Rescue Me," and the funny new Louis CK sitcom "Louie," will both premiere on June 29.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "Seinfeld": The two Costanzas

A review of the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" finale (and the quasi-"Seinfeld" finale contained within) coming up just as soon as I discriminate amongst wood...

"That ending was so much better than the one that I wrote." -Larry David

In that moment, Larry's talking about the ending to the reunion special, not the "Seinfeld" finale. And he's always been adamant (including in a line in this episode) that he has no regrets about the finale. But whether he'll ever cop to it or not, over the course of this season of "Curb," and particularly over these last two episodes, Larry has given "Seinfeld" fans the ending they deserved but didn't get a decade ago.

Since it's been a while since I've opined on this subject, and since this will likely be the last time I'll have an opportunity to do so, my two cents on the "Seinfeld" finale: It's not that it didn't work because the characters were revealed to be selfish and shallow and awful human beings. We all already knew that they were. That was part of the joke, particularly in the later seasons. It didn't work because Larry clearly worried that his audience hadn't figured this out on their own, and that he needed to tell them, and to judge the characters - and, by proxy, the viewers who liked them - in the finale. And his need to make that point got in the way of the comedy. It wasn't an episode; it was a list of all the bad things Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer had ever done, all with a scolding subtext trying to question why we had found all that stuff funny over the years.

In fairness, placing this "Seinfeld" reunion in the confines of a "Curb" episode makes it easy for it to stand out. It's all the good bits, none of the plot mechanics: just joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. But what we did see of it, here and in "The Table Read," felt much more along the lines of what the finale should have been: just one last collection of stories involving these four socially maladjusted people.

Now, as an episode of "Curb," I'd put this one a little behind "The Table Read," which had the benefit of introducing most the reunion show jokes already - though this episode featured Jerry's wonderful rant about BlackBerry etiquette - and also the presence of Leon, which automatically makes any episode at least 20% funnier. But it still had plenty of inspired moments, whether it was Larry smiling through his pure hatred for Mocha Joe as he filled his tip cup with $20 bills, or the use of "Having said that" as a classic "Seinfeld"-style catchphrase(*)

(*) I don't think I use the phrase that often in my writing, but I do know I'm gonna try to stop it in the future. Having said that, it's really useful.

The highlight, easily, was Larry's brief attempt to play George Costanza, and the bizarre meta moment of Larry David broadly playing the mannerisms of an actor who became famous for playing a shorter, stockier, slightly more lovable version of himself. For all the grief Jerry takes (and the grief he gives himself) about his limitations as an actor, I have to give him major credit for being able to get through at least one take of that scene without cackling hysterically at the spectacle. (The outtakes for that scene are a must for the next "Curb" DVD set.)

In the end, the episode provides the exact kind of happy endings that "Seinfeld" itself eschewed: the reunion comes together and is terrific, and Larry and Cheryl get back together, albeit with Cheryl getting an instant reminder of why she left the guy in the first place.

So with "Seinfeld" having gotten proper closure, has Larry also put a bow on "Curb"? The last few seasons have all ended on notes that could very easily be the end of the series: Larry dies (briefly). Larry finds happiness as a member of the Black family. Larry makes a successful "Seinfeld" reunion and gets his wife back. What's left to do?

The previous two times, Larry came up with an idea (the divorce, then the "Seinfeld" stuff) that made him want to come back. And it's entirely possible he'll find that kind of inspiration again. As always, HBO's going to give Larry all the time in the world to decide. Either the show will come back one day, or it won't.

And if it comes back, I really hope Larry can talk Jerry into joining the ranks of recurring players on the show. Jerry certainly doesn't need the money, but his real-life relationship with Larry made him into one of TV Larry's best foils to date. It's just sheer pleasure to watch Jerry goad Larry into doing things he doesn't want to do himself, or to take someone else's side in an argument because he knows it'll push Larry's buttons.

As a "Seinfeld" fan, I feel like I finally got all I needed to see of Jerry and friends. As a "Curb" fan, I'm still hungry for a lot more of Jerry with Larry, if that's what either of these men want to do with their lives.

What did everybody else think?

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "The Table Read": The Duberstein doppleganger

Some thoughts on last night's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I recharge the mitzvah...

There may have been funnier episodes of "Curb" this season ("Vehicular Fellatio" comes to mind), but none have felt as satisfying on so many levels as "The Table Read." It worked as an episode of "Curb." It worked as a quasi-"Seinfeld" reunion, and as a kind of DVD bonus feature about what life on the "Seinfeld" set was like(*). It mixed the two worlds expertly, with Marty Funkhouser making an ass of himself in front of Jerry and Jerry letting him do it, and with Leon finally, inevitably, crossing paths with Michael Richards. And it all left a big smile on my face.

(*) The interaction between Julia, Jerry and Wayne Knight in particular seemed exactly like how I imagine rehearsal on that show went.

I loved seeing Julia and Jason both start to realize that there's something fishy about the casting of Cheryl to play George's wife, and the ongoing smug hatred between Larry and Jason remains a delight. And I love that what little we heard of the reunion script feels like actual "Seinfeld" writing. A character getting mixed up with Bernie Madoff is exactly the sort of thing a 2009 "Seinfeld" episode might feature, the dialogue had all the right rhythms, and there were nice little moments like Jerry being surprised that Elaine knows about the Fortress of Solitude crystals. Plus, we got both Newman and Banya! It's clear that Larry (and probably Jerry) put a lot of time and effort into getting the one scripted part of the show right.

I mean, I don't think I would actually want to see this script produced as a real reunion special, but I'm much less confident about that than I would have been before I watched this episode. Where the script for "Jerry!" (the show-within-the-show from "Seinfeld" season four) was deliberately awful, this felt like it had potential. (Though, of course, the fact that we only got snippets, and not the whole thing, no doubt made the material seem better than it would on its own at full length.)

But taken as an episode of "Curb," it also worked. Funkhouser again overstepped his boundaries, as he so often does. The maitre d' gag tied in nicely with the little girl texting story(**), and that in turn paid off beautifully with an oblivious Larry at the doctor's office.

(***) Given that "NewsRadio" briefly aired alongside "Seinfeld" on NBC's Thursday lineup, it was a little odd to see Vicki Lewis not playing herself. But overall, she's definitely lower on the fame threshold than someone like Elisabeth Shue or John Schneider, and if they could play characters last week, then I guess she can, too.

I was a little disappointed in the references to Michael's infamous racist tirade, but more in that it's something I think I'd built up in my head ever since this season's story was announced, and so nothing could live up to that. And I think that Michael Richards as himself is more introverted and less inherently funny than Jerry or Jason are. But Leon doing his best impersonation of a white Jewish man, telling Kramer all sorts of lies about Groats disease(***), was yet another example of the genius that JB Smoove has brought to the series.

(***) Groats is fictional, and a callback to season two's "The Thong."

I have high hopes for next week's finale, but in a way, I feel like I've already gotten the "Seinfeld" reunion (or a facsimile of it) that I wanted.

What did everybody else think?

Curb Your Enthuisasm, "Officer Krupke": Krup you!

I have to watch the "Mad Men" finale in a few minutes(*), so no time to do a full-length review of tonight's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Two points: 1)How do people feel about Elisabeth Shue and John Schneider both playing characters rather than themselves, and what that says about the "Curb" fame continuum?" 2)Though "Officer Krupke" wasn't a great episode overall, the payoff at the end was perfect, and a rare instance on "Curb" of everything coming together to benefit Larry, rather than cause him more problems.

(*) As a reminder, because I have to watch this one live, the review won't go up for several hours at a minimum. Do not put comments in this or any other posts discussing the finale. Just show patience, please.

What did everybody else think?

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "Black Swan": Stone guilty

A bit hung over from last night's World Series game, and I have a full plate today at the office, so no time for a full "Curb Your Enthusiasm" review. I didn't love "Black Swan," but it was a good example of a type of "Curb" episode we haven't had a lot of this year, in that Larry was in the right for most of the episode (other than what happened to the swan, obviously), but circumstances, other people's reactions and Larry's own innate abrasiveness kept making him into the bad guy. Plus, in a nice role reversal, someone else got to use the stink-eye lie detector on Larry - and it was just as (in)effective.

What did everybody else think?

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "The Bare Midriff": Go with your gut

Thanks to the concurrent Yankee/Giants games Sunday night, I only got finished with "Curb Your Enthusiasm" this morning. Some quick thoughts coming up just as soon as I take a break in the flaunt...

What a bizarre, but ultimately satisfying, episode.

"The Bare Midriff" went to some very weird places, even by "Curb" standards: the 1960s flashback, which ended with blood being sprayed onto the windshield as the woman's husband was beaten to death; Lewis being uninjured by being hit by a car aimed straight at him; Larry being arrested for stealing napkins; and the running gag about how all bald people, regardless of race, look alike to non-baldies. "Curb" usually takes place in a slightly exaggerated version of the real world, but it has to be mostly real for Larry's behavior to be as funny as it is, and there were large swaths of "The Bare Midriff" where it felt like we had traveled to that parallel earth from "Fringe."

At the same time, though, it was such a pleasure to watch Larry and Jerry Seinfeld bounce off of each other, to see how alike they are and how much they enjoy each other's misanthropic company, to see how well they know how to push each other's buttons and can understand each other's hidden motivations(*), etc.

(*) In that respect, I think they should have had Jerry figure out the reason behind the Cheryl thing as quickly as Jeff did a few episodes ago. They could mine a lot of humor out of Jerry being irritated that he got sucked into helping Larry fix his marriage, but realizing it's too late to back out now.

And the bare midriff itself was a wonderful sight gag that kept paying dividends throughout the episode, leading to the great moment at the end where Larry's life was saved by Maureen's love handles(**).

(**) Speaking of which, what kind of casting call must that have been like?

What did everybody else think?

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "Denise Handicapped": Rolling thunder

Quick spoilers for tonight's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I put the pie down...

After last week's out-and-out dud, "Curb" rebounds somewhat with "Denise Handicapped," which didn't work overall but at least had some funny isolated scenes: Larry struggling to make out with Denise, Leon scolding Larry for his technique ("You did your dizzle on her?"), Larry's BlackBerry panic when he spotted Sammy struggling in the water, and the sheer terror on Larry's face when Rosie O'Donnell ran up the stairs after him.

But other parts felt too underdeveloped. I don't see Larry getting all bent out of shape over someone else insisting on picking up a check, though of course the show once did a great episode where he got upset when someone wouldn't do it. It didn't feel like they did enough with the joke about Denise being disappointed that Larry was bald, and the screaming match with Ted Danson about the pie went nowhere; "Curb" when it's clicking ties everything to everything else. And Larry's whole chopsticks inquiry with the adoptive parents seemed another case, like most of last week, of Larry just being a dick, as opposed to Larry having a point somewhere, but being ignorant and/or obstinate about fitting it into social norms.

Still, I laughed a bunch of times, which is a major improvement over last week.

What did everybody else think?

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "The Hot Towel": Digits

Quick spoilers for last night's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I get you in my wallet...

Much as I love "Curb," every now and then the series will do an episode where I don't laugh once, and "The Hot Towel" was unfortunately one of those.

I want to pin it on the idea that I prefer episodes where there's some grain of wisdom in Larry's behavior - Why shouldn't he be allowed to ask who else is coming to a dinner party? Why can't he pay another person to ride in his car and make him eligible for the carpool lane? - and that he was being both obnoxious and wrong in this one, but that's not it. Larry was mostly being an ass, but he was dead-on with Christian Slater and the caviar, and he was right that Sammy's song was unbearable, even if you're not supposed to point that out in polite society.

Or I could pin it on the recycled "Seinfeld" jokes - George Costanza also had trouble going left, and the caviar bit was close, if not identical, to George's double-dipping incident - but because both "Seinfeld" and "Curb" are drawn from Larry's own life, this wasn't the first time the new show has featured storylines similar to the old one, nor will it be the last. So that's not quite it.

I just didn't, for whatever reason, find any of "The Hot Towel" funny (except maybe Ted Danson's usual contempt for Larry), and had to watch several scenes (Sammy's song in particular) through the horror movie finger filter, which I haven't had to employ on a "Curb" episode in quite some time. After a while, to get through the episode, I started pondering where the fame threshhold is where people have to play themselves (Christian Slater) or get to play a character (Sherry Stringfield, Philip Baker Hall). Any theories on that?

And what did everyone else think?

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "The Reunion": Not that there's anything wrong with that

Spoilers for tonight's "Seinfeld"-ian "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I figure out why Christopher Walken was on the boat...

"You know those reunion shows, they're so lame, really. They never work, the actors are 10 years older. It doesn't look right. I don't think so." -Larry

Thankfully, Real-Life Larry is a clever enough man to figure out how to make a "Seinfeld" reunion happen in TV Larry's world, but in a way that's not going to be as disappointing as a real reunion would. This is the last episode I've seen in advance so far, but if "The Reunion" is anything to go by, this plotline is going to be terrific.

We knew from season two that putting Larry in a scene with Jason Alexander was gold.Alexander putting down the character of George (and, by extension, insulting Larry) is a joke that I never tire of, ditto the constant one-upsmanship between the two over things like the tip. And we knew from that season that Julia Louis-Dreyfus could fit into this show just fine. So the real pleasure of this one was seeing Larry and Jerry work together. It's clear from watching "Seinfeld" and "Curb," and from listening to the two of them do "Seinfeld" DVD commentaries, that these are two men with fairly simpatico worldviews and who enjoy bantering with each other. Jerry's still a pretty terrible actor (Larry is, frankly, much more natural than he is at this point), but his awkwardness is almost part of his charm, and it was fun to listen in on their whole digression about Natalie Wood. Not much of Michael Richards in this one, but I hold out hope that an upcoming episode will put him in a room with Leon.

But what I really loved about "The Reunion" was how it was still very clearly an episode of "Curb," even with the fab four in the house, and even with the plot mirroring the "Seinfeld" season four arc where Jerry and George got NBC to produce "Jerry!," down to Larry incorporating previous storylines from the show (giving a doll a haircut, hooker in the carpool lane) into the script. It's still first and foremost about Larry being selfish and myopic and unwilling to conform to society's expectations if he doesn't agree with society.

Larry saying, "This is me apologizing. It's about as sorry as I get" was at least as funny as anything that happened with the "Seinfeld" actors, and the brief hint of the closing credits before Larry stopped to ponder the two alternate futures was hysterical.

What did everybody else think?

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "Vehicular Fellatio": Get out of my dreams and into my car

Quick spoilers for tonight's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I reject your hypothesis...

The "Seinfeld" gang is here next week, but I have to say, I was a lot more excited by the end of this episode - specifically, that Leon will be sticking around even though Loretta and the rest of the Black family have moved out. Leon has now become such a fundamental part of the show - I'd argue he's currently the funniest character other than Larry himself - that it would have been a huge disappointment to say goodbye to him along with everybody else. And I love that they didn't even bother contriving a reason for Leon to stay while his sister was bailing, but instead had him act like no other option had ever occurred to him. I'm so relieved JB Smoove is around to matter-of-factly deliver lines like "Ass is ass, Larry!"

(One question on the Leon subplot: why wasn't there some kind of joke made about how unusual it is that one of Leon's friends was a big "Seinfeld" fan? Wasn't there always a big deal in the '90s that "Seinfeld" at its peak was the most-watched show in white households and the least-watched in black ones?)

The rest of the episode dealt, hilariously, with rules of etiquette governing oral sex and automobiles, with occasional interludes for Larry to attack a vacuum-sealed package (which led to one of the better "Curb" episode-ending jokes in a while), and guest stars Sharon Lawrence and Lolita Davidovich both fit in well.

What did everybody else think?

Curb Your Enthusiasm, "Funkhouser's Crazy Sister": Prognosis negative?

Quick spoilers for the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" season premiere coming up just as soon as I condescend to you with a tiny pear...

I talked a bit about this episode in Thursday's column, plus I'm busy with covering the Emmys and polishing my review of tonight's insanely good "Mad Men," plus "Curb" doesn't really lend itself to long reviews. So I'll be brief.

It's great to have the show back. It's great to see not only Larry, but Jeff and Suzy and Funkhouser and Leon (LEON!!!!), and to add a new character like Catherine O'Hara as Bam Bam on top of that. And now that you've seen it, I'm curious where you would rank Jeff's decision to lie about sleeping with Bam Bam - even after Funkhouser announced he was going to send her back to the mental hospital because of it - among the most egregious acts ever committed by a "Curb" character.

I know everybody's eager for the "Seinfeld" gang to turn up in a couple of weeks, but I'm just as happy with smaller moment like the liquids/solids debate, Larry's theory for a pre-break-up agreement ("As soon as I say 'apricot,' it's over"), the argument over the thermostat, or the unspoken joke about Wanda now loving Larry because he's dating a black woman (and/or because he's no longer dragging down her friend Cheryl).

What did everybody else think?

'Curb Your Enthusiasm' preps for a 'Seinfeld' reunion - andreikirilenkotattoo on TV

In today's column, I review the start to the new season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," including the "Seinfeld" reunion storyline that begins with the third episode.

So, so glad to have both "Curb" and "Seinfeld" back in my life, to varying degrees.

TCA: 'Seinfeld' reunion on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'

Over at NJ.com, I have details of how the next season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" will feature the long-awaited (and entirely fictional) "Seinfeld" reunion.

Curb: The perfect woman

Spoilers for the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" season finale coming up just as soon as I adjust the thermostat...

Now we know why Larry's allegedly talking about coming back for another year, maybe even two. "Curb" with Larry and Cheryl? Maybe played out. "Curb" with Larry and the Blacks? Brilliant!

An up-and-down season got an up-and-down finale, but the final montage of Larry as Loretta's new man made everything -- the episode, the season, the John McEnroe episode -- totally worth it. Loretta getting up in Susie's face while Larry enjoys her protection and waves dismissively is one of the funniest "Curb" moments ever. When Loretta told Larry that they'd be moving out, I felt as sad as Larry did, if only because I was going to miss Leon and his advice ("You need to focus on some ass!" "Grow a mustache, man!"), and now, assuming Larry in real life decides to keep going, I won't have to.

I don't know that this living situation is going to be the status quo in the event of another season -- for all I know, the show could come back with the Blacks having moved out again -- but the possibilities are huge, as the glimpses we saw in the montage suggested. Larry as a parental figure? Larry with a woman who's as loud and confrontational as he is? Larry with a woman who's much harder to offend than Cheryl? Leon as an ongoing castmember? Sign me up.

The episode as a whole, like I said, was uneven. I liked the little moments, like Jeff revoking the $50 bet, or Larry and Lewis essentially breaking character (if that's possible in this format) over the "Ben Laden" mispronunciation, or Larry's interplay with the patient sign-in sheet ("You strike me as that type," "I'm not an inventor, but I'm an improver"). But outside of Larry's explosion at his assistant for mentioning the tickle in front of Michael McKean, I don't think any of the larger plot worked, falling into that "Curb" trap of seeming predictable rather than inevitable.

But Loretta calling out Susie? Damn. I need to go watch that again. What did everybody else think?

Curb: Forget me now

Spoilers for "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I get a good seat to watch a walkathon...

When you have a show about a man who does awful things every day, it becomes hard to top yourself after a while. And yet, deep into season six of "Curb," Larry David has managed to reach new highs -- or lows, depending on your point of view -- of behavior.

Larry arranging a fake mugging to suck up to Cheryl's therapist was maybe in the upper reaches of bad "Curb" behavior, but letting his own therapist (hilariously played by Steve Coogan) go to jail and get raped to preserve the lie? Wow. (And I don't think there's any way to read Coogan's bow-legged walk at getting out of prison other than him becoming, to use a word from "Oz," a prag.) And then, when Cheryl's shrink fell for him, Larry faked Alzheimer's? Double-wow.

There are times when I'm too appalled by Larry's behavior to find "Curb" funny, but there was a gonzo energy to "The Therapists" that made me not mind. My grandfather died of Alzheimer's, and so I should have been offended by that entire thread, but Funkhouser's description of his father-in-law's behavior ("He screams at the cat because she didn't vote.") and, especially, Larry hanging his head at the realization that he doesn't even like chicken salad had me clutching my sides.

As a comedian, Larry's always been a believer that any subject can be made funny with the right absurdist spin (see also "The Survivor"), and throughout this episode he approached problematic material from a ridiculous right angle to make it work. The scene where Larry and Jeff approach Leon (essentially their only black male friend) to play the mugger could have been awkward and painful, but Leon's insistence that someone would need to be fucked up -- and Larry's opposition to same -- instead made it hilarious.

Seems a shame that the season is coming to an end only next week. We had a great first few episodes, then a bunch of awful ones in the middle, but this has been three weeks in a row of brilliance, and since "Curb" seasons tend to have strong finales, I don't expect this one to disappoint. The good news is that Larry seems amenable to continuing the show -- maybe even for two more years, per the NY Post.

What did everybody else think?

Curb: You keep using that word

Brief "Curb Your Enthusiasm" spoilers coming up just as soon as I get a prescription filled...

Soooo close to being a classic "Curb" episode. All the ingredients were there, save the biggest one: the ending. I liked almost everything else -- dating a doctor as parallel to seeing a doctor, Jeff's dismay at turning bald (Jeff Garlin is almost as good as Susie Essman at playing comic rage, but it's often funnier because he's called on to do it so rarely), Larry getting into trouble for using the N-word (and, especially, Larry being branded a bigot by the pharmacist because of the doctor's hilariously-phrased note) -- but then we came to the final minutes and it was clear Larry didn't come up with a good way to end it.

After all, after getting into trouble twice for repeating verbatim what the guy in the men's room said, shouldn't Larry have figured out by now that he can tell the story without using the word? Plus, Jeff and Susie know the story now; when Larry froze up, why didn't one of them finish it?

Still, 95% of a really funny episode, and seeing Brenda Strong with Larry David reminded me of the old story about how, when he cast her to play braless wonder Sue Ellen Mischke, she noted that she was nursing and, therefore, could make her breasts whatever size Larry wanted.

What did everybody else think?

Curb: California Split

Spoilers for the latest "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I set Season Passes for all of my wife's favorite shows...

Art imitating life or an amazing coincidence? Ordinarily, I hate learning and writing about the personal lives of celebrities, but given how much of this show either spins out of things that happened to Larry or things he wishes had happened, it's hard not to look at the break-up of his on-screen marriage without wondering about the parallels to the real one. Larry and Laurie have said it's an amicable split, but was a faulty TiVo involved in any way? Or did Laurie find out that Larry was writing a separation into the show and start getting ideas? For what it's worth, the real-life Davids announced their split in July, which was several months after "Curb" wrapped production for the season.

Okay, that aside, "The TiVo Guy," while not great, was still a significant improvement over the last batch of episodes. Cheryl coming to her senses and dumping Larry was a long time coming, and there's a lot of fun to be had with the premise. I loved Larry trying to justify his value to Cheryl with the omnipresent tissues/mints/pen supply, and him asking Cheryl -- who for a moment seemed willing to listen sympathetically to him -- corroborate his story for the skeptical hostess, and I really loved how quickly Funkhouser caved on his loudly declared intention to side with Larry in all of this.

More importantly, the new status quo (however temporary) allows Larry to date. I know people weren't crazy about the Mel Brooks arc from season four, but I loved the parallel arc with Larry repeatedly failing in his attempt to fulfill Cheryl's promise to let him have sex outside the marriage before their 10th anniversary. (Interesting that Gina Gershon, who played one of those failed conquests, wasn't in this episode, even though Larry's single and he stopped by her dry cleaning establishment twice.) The very married in real life Lucy Lawless was a good sport as Larry's first date; I look forward to him humiliating himself many times over with the opposite sex.

Oddly, though, my favorite part of the episode had nothing whatsoever to do with the split, or with anything else: Larry showing up the D-bag with the Bluetooth by having an equally loud conversation with himself. In an episode in which he was wrong on so many, many things, Larry could not have been righter in that moment.

What did everybody else think?

Chair masters

Pay cable round-up time, with spoilers for, in order, "Tell Me You Love Me," "Dexter" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I sanitize my reading chair...

So, remember all those snarky comments suggesting that "Tell Me You Love Me" front-loaded all the really graphic sex scenes in the first couple of episodes as a bait-and-switch? Episode six put the lie to that theory, between Jamie having another franks 'n beans tryst (this time with Boone from "Lost" ) and, especially, Dr. Foster and her husband proving that, yes, old people can have very loud, very happy, very naked sex in a cozy armchair. While I'm sure that most of the audience (what's left of it by this episode) is focusing on all that exposed, not so youthful flesh, what struck me about the scene was that it was the first time all season (other than that half-glimpsed oral sex scene -- also featuring May -- in the premiere) that any characters on this show actually seemed to be enjoying themselves while doing the deed. Even Caroline and Palek's pot-fueled make-up sex wasn't significantly less mechanical than all those times they've been trying to impregnate her. And with the scene where May goes to meet her old lover, I feel like we have enough backstory now to legitimately consider the Fosters our fourth couple, which means I can say that I like half of the couples on this show, instead of only one out of three.

Meanwhile, the stories of my most and least favorite couples played out in some parallel. Dr. Foster tells Dave and Katie to stop trying to have sex, which of course opens the dam for them to finally start talking, even a little, about their problem. And Caroline and Palek, having quit both their fertility plans and therapy, finally enjoy each other's company, however briefly (and however aided by marijuana). I have to say, by the way, that while I absolutely despise Caroline, Sonya Walger's doing a hell of a job playing this spoiled, controlling ice queen, and watching her rip apart the sandwich lady (after having made an ass of herself with a temper tantrum in front of her boss) made me hope that the "Lost" producers are watching and realize that Penny might be far more useful as a villain than as Desmond's long-lost love.

"Dexter," meanwhile, has a lot of fun with this Narcotics Anonymous development, as what seemed at first to be a big hassle for Dexter turned out to be very helpful. It has Doakes "understanding" what his suspicions about Dexter really meant, has Rita taking him back, and it gives him a place where he can talk semi-openly about his addiction to murder, so long as he couches it in vague terminology. Plus, Jaime Murray from "Hustle"! What's not to like?

One thing I found particularly interesting was Dexter's dilemma about whether to break his pattern to stop the car dealer from killing his next victim. The overt admission that he doesn't target other killers to save people -- that they just make good targets and allows him to keep his word to Harry -- isn't exactly a surprise. But spelling it out like that, at a time when Dexter is being chased by a seemingly decent cop in Lundy -- in an episode where Lundy rips apart the audience's rationale for liking a vigilante serial killer with his "The worst killers in history are the ones who think the murders were somehow just" speech -- is a choice I'm not sure a lot of writing staffs would make. The trend in most series with morally complex protagonists is to slowly sand off their edges over time (even "The Shield" did that for a while with Mackey), and I admire team "Dexter" in their willingness to embrace everything that's wrong about their main character.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is coming perilously close to falling off my radar. That's three absolute stinkers in a row now. When "The Anonymous Donor" aired, I wrote, "The genius of "Curb" so often is that you know where a joke is going (but) laugh anyway." Here, I saw almost every joke in advance -- the toaster preventing Larry from getting Loretta to the interview, the phone swap and the havoc it wreaked -- but they were so predictable even within the "Curb" formula that I didn't find any of them funny. And the one pay-off I didn't predict -- the exterminator trying to stomp the rat-dog -- was one of those moments, like McEnroe inviting Larry to the party last week, where the show sacrifices any semblance of real human behavior at the expense of a gag. The guy's an exterminator; why is he just trying to stomp on this thing? And how can he not tell a rat from a dog? This is a far cry from season three's "Club Soda and Salt," where they managed to make professional expertise itself the joke.

As I recall, last season had a similar trend -- a few good episodes at the start, followed by a long stretch of catastrophe -- and I don't know how much longer I can stick around to see if things improve. It's emotionally draining to watch this show even when it's funny. The last few weeks ahve just been painful.

What did everybody else think?

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Spoilers for, in order, "Heroes," "Journeyman" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I call a limo...

How boring was "Heroes" last night? So much so that I vastly preferred the episode of "Journeyman" that followed it. (Though, in fairness, it was a decent episode of "Journeyman." More in a minute.) The new characters range from repetitively dull (Maya and Alejandro, who are now 3-for-3 in plots where they're temporarily split up, though at least here Maya actively decided to use her powers) to completely annoying (West the flyer, the Lucky Charms gang). The stories are moving at a snail's pace, typified by Peter getting the magic ID box but refusing to open it, largely because it gives the writers an excuse to keep him off the board as long as they possibly can.

The only real highlight -- other than, as Fienberg joked to me this morning, Parkman and Mohinder coming out of the closet as Molly's two gay daddies -- was the return of Sylar and the news of his apparent depowering. I said last year that he had reached a point where the writers needed to find a way to shake loose most of his acquired abilities because he was too powerful for them to write interestingly. (The season finale was proof of that.) So I hope that he's really back to ground zero, in need of acquiring an entirely new batch of powers, rather than having his talents temporarily repressed. And I definitely hope that he was unsuccessful in picking up Candace's illusion-casting powers, as they became really annoying in the last third of season one, giving the writers a Get Out of Scene Free card by allowing Candace to appear anywhere as anyone. (The power did give them an excuse to keep the character around briefly despite the loss of Missi Peregrym, and the writers finally pulled the trick they should have in the season finale by showing us, sort of, what Candace really looked like. If you want, fanwank it as the default illusion being so powerful that it can work even when she's unconscious, but not when she's dead.)

"Journeyman," like I said, was halfway decent. I don't know that it's a show I'd watch every week, but Dan's mission -- and the complications generated by its setting -- was a lot more interesting than the first two. Having to change something small while ignoring a big event is a familiar trope of this kind of show, but it's something "Journeyman" had to do at some point, and Dan's failure to save Hugh's sister illustrated some of the limits of what he can do. (If the guy playing Hugh wasn't a regular, though, it would have been a lot more interesting if Dan had saved the sister and then returned to the present to discover that he had a new boss, because Hugh was still a drunk without his sister's death as a wake-up call.)

That said, making him a reporter was a mistake, because there's no way a guy who's supposed to be a topnotch investigative journalist would be spending this much time with Livia without constantly badgering her with questions about the who, what, when, where, why and how of their "traveling" -- especially now that he's adjusted to the situation. I know I harp on this a lot with Jack and The Others on "Lost," but this is even worse, because it's the thing Dan is trained to do. That doesn't mean the writers have to make Livia spell everything out for us by episode four, just that there need to be reasons for Dan to not ask (i.e., his target shows up or Livia disappears as he's in the middle of a query) or for Livia to not answer (even "I don't know" or "I'm not allowed to tell you yet" would suffice). The ratings are lousy enough that I suspect this is a moot point, but if the show were to be around long-term, it would bug me.

Finally, that's two bad "Curb Your Enthusiasm"s in a row. This one was, I guess, partially redeemed by the sight of Larry and John McEnroe -- Larry's equivalent in the world of tennis -- screaming at each other outside the party, but the rest was a mess. The internal logic didn't work at all. I understand Larry wanting to help out the limo driver -- he got into trouble for something similar in the episode where he took a fork out of the restaurant -- but why invite him into Ted's house? Why not bring him a book or something else to help the guy pass the time? Why would McEnroe tolerate all of Larry's questions instead of just shutting the divider? Why on Earth would McEnroe invite Larry into the party after that fiasco at the cemetary? Etc. When "Curb" works, it's because you understand why people are behaving the way that they do, even though they're being ridiculous. This was just a lot of forced wackiness.

What did everybody else think?

Toilet humor

Brief spoilers for "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Saturday Night Live" -- I have two columns to write today but will try to hit some of the other Sunday shows (Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters and Brotherhood) in a separate post if I have the time -- coming up just as soon as I buy Jake Gyllenhaal a razor...

Had to happen sooner or later, I guess, but we got our first bad "Curb Your Enthusiasm" of the season. A few funny bits here and there -- Leon's rant about how Larry should have responded to the skinhead, and Charles Napier as the barber beating the hell out of Larry with his towel -- but Larry's bathroom talk phobia didn't really work, several scenes called on him to horribly overact (both hearing damage incidents, plus the stink eye lie detector gag that was old by the second time he did it years ago), and the mistaken identity payoff stole a gag the show had done just two episodes ago (Leon getting in the face of the wrong guy) without tying together enough of the other storylines. Hopefully, next week will be back on form.

Lorne Michaels likes to say that athletes are among the best "SNL" hosts, and I can think of a bunch of brilliant athlete-featured sketches over the years: Michael Jordan and Stuart Smalley, Wayne Gretzky in "Waikiki Hockey," Joe Montana as sincere guy Stu, and Peyton Manning's United Way commercial last year. I don't know that anything from LeBron James' hosting debut is going to make it into the time capsule, especially since the two best segments of the show -- the digital short and Kanye West disrupting the Nobel Prize ceremony -- didn't feature him. Still, Bron-Bron had a few funny moments, notably the literacy commercial (Sudeikis' delivery of "It's a book!" was hilarious) and his stint as a Solid Gold dancer, and I haven't been able to get the damn Adam Levine portion of "Iran So Far Away" out of my head for 36 hours, so they're doing something right over there. Looking forward to Seth Rogen.

What did everybody else think?