The All-New TT: Television Time Mini Reviews

[WisteriaHysteria]

Curb Your Enthusiasm just ended this Sunday. (If Larry David wanted to make another season, I'm sure HBO would bend over backwards, but for now it's being touted as the final season.)

The final episode has the same basic premise as the final episode of Seinfeld. The episode is fittingly titled "No Lessons Learned".

The only real difference between the two shows finales is that people in the 90s were really, weirdly, attached to the Seinfeld characters and liked them as people. Which is extra weird in hindsight because they're all weirdo sociopaths. Here, I feel like most people would be ok with Larry getting his comeuppance because no viewer is under any illusions that the character he plays isn't a loathsome pos.

Not the best season finale the series has ever had, but it's pretty solid and appreciate the meta-humor.

 

[YangusKhan]

I haven't been keeping up with this season very well; I'm still on like episode 3 I think? Honestly I haven't enjoyed the last few seasons as much as the earlier stuff, but I don't know if that's because I've changed or if the show has (I haven't rewatched the show either; maybe it won't feel as funny to me anymore in general?), so I think that's part of what's killing my motivation to finish watching.

 

[zonetrope]

I haven't caught up yet, but I like the twist in the general premise of the season that Larry is on trial for violating a real law against helping people, in contrast to the Good Samaritan law in the Seinfeld finale.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I just admire the spite of doing it again. There's a moment in the finale where a mother is trying to use Larry as an object lesson for her child to learn a valuable lesson, and Larry - being disgruntled that his time is being wasted by a stranger - tells the kid "I've never learned a single lesson in my entire life." *chef's kiss*

I haven't been keeping up with this season very well; I'm still on like episode 3 I think? Honestly I haven't enjoyed the last few seasons as much as the earlier stuff, but I don't know if that's because I've changed or if the show has (I haven't rewatched the show either; maybe it won't feel as funny to me anymore in general?), so I think that's part of what's killing my motivation to finish watching.

The first season or so is a little rough before the show decides it's going to double down on/embrace Larry being a bad person, and then just gets better with literally every season from that point on until 2011, which is where the show peaked.

When it came back in 2017, I thought the Fatwa season was pretty brilliant, but it played like Larry was going through ideas he'd saved up over the course of like 6 years, and a few of them were out of date. I also thought the Spite Store season was also pretty damned good.

Last season and this season both are not the best, but it's still an enjoyable show. Solid gags on a routine basis, and also it'll never stop being entertaining to watch Larry get his just deserts.

 

[Adrenaline]

I thought the show fell off in season 5, then got some mojo back when they brought in JB Smoove, and then sort of fell off again in the last couple years, but even at its worst it was a fun watch. Larry David is maybe the best sitcom writer alive. I appreciate how the Curb finale played with the Seinfeld finale, but honestly I think I would have enjoyed it more if it just did the exact same ending straight with no subversion.

 

[zonetrope]

I haven't gone back and rewatched early Curb, so at this point it's surreal to me that there are five whole seasons without JB Smoove.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Amazon dropped the entire first season of Fallout a few hours ago. It's been getting universal critical praise, and one episode in it's pretty dang good.

Also, Ella Purnell is a superstar. Stamp it.