Curb Your Enthusiasm

It's a glorious mess. [2 Jan 2004]

This is the season-12 premiere, so there’s a lot to establish. .... It’s fun to think of the ways this show has grown over time in its ambitions and scope (while still remaining petty and small as ever). Watching Larry argue with Siri is great.

In the first of the new episodes, David seems all too eager to reach, and even stretch, for laughs. ... The good news is that as the weeks go on ... the show gets better and better, until the barnacles of self-consciousness fall off and David gets back to his old stride. It only requires a bit of patience, in other words, and viewers who find the first couple of episodes disappointing should stay with it, because at its lunatic best, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is still one of the absolutely funniest half-hours on television. [3 Jan 2004]

It's a funny episode, boisterously so in parts, but it's difficult to shake the feeling that we've seen this before. After eight seasons, it's started to become too easy to spot Curb Your Enthusiasm's patented ironic twists and callback gags coming a mile away.

I know there are a lot of people out there who can’t get enough of it, all the irritation and the narcissism and the racial tension and the yelling. But I’m not one of those people....Curb Your Enthusiasm leaves me just...well, a little bored.