Bored to Death

Bored has its distinctive brand of slapstick noir down pat. Its charm is in the details. [9 Oct 2010, p.69]

Ted Danson recurs as a skewed version of himself on Curb, and on Bored to Death, he's a pot-addled cross between Seinfeld's Mr. Peterman and Donald Trump. What a pleasure to find some humor in a culture that makes that guy a hero.

We're totally hip to the fact that the real reason to watch remains Ted Danson's titanically louche magazine editor.

These political hiccups are unfortunate, but not deal-breakers. Bored to Death is undeniably smart, and so it could very well be laying the groundwork for all these wincing moments to be properly unpacked by an apt post-modern femme fatale (mom?).

The result is a mildly alluring dark comedy. Schwartzman is difficult to like, but he always has been. The show is lifted greatly by "The Hangover's" Zach Galifianakis as Jonathan's strange friend, Ray, a comic-book artist with a complementary set of his own strange-but-cute neuroses.

I’d like to say the self-consciously literary Bored to Death lives up (or down) to its title, but it really doesn’t even leave that much of an impression.

He's supposed to be a neurotic slacker who escapes into this cool new world, but even there, he still comes off as a neurotic slacker. You want smack him and tell him to go sit down. And if you did, he probably would.