Curb Your Enthusiasm (Sundays 9/8 Central)

HBO

Sep 18, 2009 Web Exclusive By Kyle Lemmon

The glass is still half empty when HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm returns for its seventh season Sunday night, but Larry David just might be adding more water.

David steers the ship well as the show's continuing producer-writer-star and lovable curmudgeon. Of course, he's still got plenty of nagging problems. Thieves, mealy apricots, and his new live-in girlfriend, Loretta (Vivica A. Fox) furrow his brow. The latter's insistence on keeping the bedroom too warm at night will be hard to dispose of since she's just been diagnosed with cancer. People that can't handle cancer jokes should steer clear. David doesn't pull any punches.

Once he thinks up a way to win back his recently divorced wife, Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), the season's true narrative clicks into focus at the end of these three introductory episodes. Although he's always sneered at NBC's offers for a Seinfeld reunion, David realizes if he agrees he can swoon his actress ex with the part of George Costanza's ex-wife. That setup seems classic, especially with who's involved.

The cast of Seinfeld—Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards—appear in a three-episode arc on Curb Your Enthusiasm's seventh season. This high profile arc comes after David's tried similiar ventures in the past. If you recall, he already tried TV projects with Alexander and Louis-Dreyfus (season two), a restaurant investment with Ted Danson and Michael York (season three), and was in The Producers with Mel Brooks, Ben Stiller and David Schwimmer (season four). All of them went horribly wrong. The third episode of the current season sets up the new storyline nicely and the gang slips into their old roles and set (!) very easily, even if the long-running, revolutionary sitcom went off air 11 years ago.

The meta, single camera show is not a stranger to most of the cast though. During its first six seasons, Curb welcomed three Seinfeld actors, except Richards. Their cameos here seem to continue their love-hate relationship with David. He bickers about tandem tipping with Alexander and over whether Louis-Dreyfus was at her daughter's birthday party. Richards stares at naked ladies and doesn't even hear David's pitch and Seinfeld returns to his straight man role. The Seinfeld group will understandably get the spotlight and headlines, but Curb's observations on social norms are as deliriously snide and dyspeptic as ever. The show's ad-hoc scripting and direction coaxes out the laughs as well.

Los Angeles-centric jokes also abound: the danger of empty gestures, drinking/eating out of someone's fridge, vacuum-sealed packaging that's impossible to open, restaurants that are too dark to read the menu, and having sex with mentally unstable people. The latter comes from the first episode, "Funkhouser's Crazy Sister," which stars Marty Funkhouser (Bob Einstein) and his crazy sibling, Bam Bam. Bam Bam is played by the perennially great Catherine O'Hara (Best in Show / Where the Wild Things Are). The second episode,"Vehicular Fellatio," has a classic Seinfeld ending but also magnifies the small fault in Curb's impenetrable armor: the law of diminishing yells. In the world of David-opolis nobody every shrugs off insults or even compliments and because of this, the arguments tend to go on a little longer than the comedic currency of the scenario.

Reuniting with his old pals puts a spring into the David's step and this year's Curbfeld plot is ridiculously promising though, even if the first two episodes aren't exactly revolutionary by Curb standards. Upcoming episodes will see appearances by Seinfeld co-stars Wayne Knight, Len Lesser, Estelle Harris, and Jerry Stiller, as well as Christian Slater and Meg Ryan. This "anti-reunion reunion" is already set to be the TV event of the fall. If David decides he's coming back for an eighth seeason this one will be hard to top. It's pretty, pretty, pretty good. (www.hbo.com/larrydavid)

Author rating: 7/10

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Average reader rating: 8/10