There's great danger for the loneliest ranger of all.

Monday, June 21, 2004

I did nothing this weekend. Nothing. I accomplished nothing (well, I had to go to work on Sunday to work on some things). I was holed up with DVDs. I ordered in pizza. I didn't shave. My hygiene was rudimentary, enough for a pocket-change romp in Bangkok. There were days of cathodic comedy ahead of me.

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON: More great stuff from the mind of Larry David. My favorite episode is the one where Larry inadvertently destroys his sister-in-law's romantic life--again (you'll recall the first season's deadly "c/aunt" episode where Larry's advice to her pig of a boyfriend inspired him to dump her during the aunt's funeral)--this time by disrupting her Jewish fiance's baptism into the Christian faith. Of course, this makes him a hero to the fiance's kin ("We Jews gotta stick together. That was a great thing you did!") but doesn't score any points with his wife's shrill family. It's a great all-around half-hour with a hilarious B story: Richard Lewis explodes over Larry's answering machine message, which he swears Larry's stolen from him. Larry attempts to change it ("I'll be the man here, OK?"), but he ends up deleting it instead and missing a slew of phone calls--including one from a homeless person who'd inherited one of his old coats, which happened to have the Davids' plane tickets to Monterey. The season's thread is a "series pitch" Larry makes to both Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, who are finding post-Seinfeld life difficult. The first collaboration dissolves when Jason and Larry part ways over where to hold their meetings; with Julia, Larry makes it through a number of cable and network meetings, then systematically ruins every tenuous relationship at those companies.

My only complaint is the complete dearth of special features. At least the first season had commentary (premiere episode only) and a Bob Costas interview. With ten episodes on two discs, it's a hearty meal with no dessert menu: you have just enough room for a nosh of cheesecake, but the waiter is nowhere to be found. In Larry David's universe, that's reason enough to avoid tipping either maitre'd OR "captain."

THE THIN BLUE LINE: THE COMPLETE LINE-UP: I'm still not sure what it is about this British series, but I just flat-out loved it. Back when I lived in Albany and had nothing to do all day except be poor, I'd withstand PBS' Saturday night Britcom lineup of Keeping Up Appearances and Goodnight Sweetheart to reward myself with this Ben Elton gem, steered by the comedic prowess of Rowan Atkinson and a sterling cast somewhat kinda sorta recognizable to those who pay attention to British actors: James Dreyfus, Mina Anwar (gorgeous), Serena Evans, Mark Addy (who got his big break Stateside in The Full Monty, then squandered it by playing Fred Flintstone in a direct-to-video sham), and David Hague (you might remember him from Four Weddings And A Funeral). The Thin Blue Line follows the misadventures of the Gasforth Police Department; Atkinson is the hoity-toity (an epithet literally branded on David Hague's tongue), broomstick-up-the-butt, rules-and-regulations Chief Inspector Fowler, who commands the uniformed troops (the airbrained Constable Goody [Dreyfus], the young and liberal Maggie Habib [Anwar], the veteran Constable Gladstone [Rudolph Walker], and desk sergeant/lover Patricia Dawkins [Evans]), and contends with the uppity plainsclothesmen of CID, overseen by the overexcitedly inept Detective Inspector Derek Grim (Hague). The show's tone is delightfully silly, though it often tackles more grim subjects (racism and child abandonment, in the same half-hour), replete with double entendres and Ben Elton's learned, thesauritical ear for comedic dialogue. Not as great or memorable as Monty Python's Flying Circus, the Blackadder anthology, or The Young Ones, but eons beyond Are You Being Served? or Noel's House Party--cute in its own way.

Happy Monday. Buy American. Failing that, take it home to mother and make it your wife.

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Location: Los Angeles, California, United States
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