cancel2 2022
Canceled
It’s the best sitcom of the past two decades, with so much more to give. Here are a few suggestions about where it could go next – to Hawaii or east LA, for example
Curb Your Enthusiasm is the best sitcom of the past 20 years. There is no argument to be made here, though if one wanted to advocate for a tie between Larry David’s groundbreaking series and the original British version of The Office, I would listen. Since the pilot movie aired in 1999, Curb has been consistently hilarious and cleverly plotted. No matter how long we have to wait between seasons, it’s always a pleasure to watch Larry conduct his symphony of human misery.
We’ve waited five years for another installment, and finally, word broke that HBO would commission another batch of episodes. Details were scarce in the network’s announcement, but that gives the internet room to do what it does best: wildly speculate on topics it has no inside knowledge of because it’s fun. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do here, folks.
Larry David resurrecting Curb Your Enthusiasm for HBO
Based on the fact that I have watched this entire television series, I can tell you that season nine will likely have an overarching storyline that carries through all the episodes. The first two years were mostly standalone weekly stories, but season three experimented with serialization – the episodes built to the grand opening of a restaurant Larry invested in with the English actor Michael York. By season four – the season where Larry joins the Broadway cast of The Producers – the plots became so interconnected that some jokes wouldn’t pay off for multiple episodes. The culmination of this evolution was the masterful Seinfeld reunion season, a premise that easily could have devolved into parody but never did. It would be a big surprise if the ambition of the writing decreased for season nine.
So, what could the story of season nine be? Larry’s gotten divorced, dated, had a live-in girlfriend, acted in musicals, searched for his birth parents and ruined a variety of dinner parties, weddings, funerals and birthdays. If I might indulge myself briefly, here are a few suggestions:
Larry gets a job directing a movie
One of the rare blemishes on Larry’s post-Seinfeld career is his one and only feature film directing job, the 1998 comedy Sour Grapes which starred Craig Bierko and Steven Weber as brothers who fight over a fortune won at an Atlantic City casino. I’ve tried to convince myself that Sour Grapes is funny many times in my life. I’ve failed every time. It’s mirthless, staged as conventionally as possible, and edited without any sense of momentum. It’s a trainwreck, one that he rarely discusses in the media. Why not use it as fodder for a season of Curb?
Larry moves to the Eastside of Los Angeles
Curb often mines comedy from putting Larry inside a culture he doesn’t understand and watching him fail to integrate himself. Imagine Larry, single and wealthy, deciding that he’s going to move to Silver Lake or Echo Park and attempt to recapture his youth. Then, imagine him waiting in line for a $10 juice.
The Larry-less season
Can I interest you in 10 episodes of the continuing adventures of Leon Black
Curb goes Hawaiian
All the greatest TV shows go Hawaiian eventually. The Brady Bunch. Happy Days. Saved by the Bell. Beverly Hills 90210. MTV’s The Real World. You know, the real quality programs. Send Larry to Hawaii for awhile. Make him get a tan. Have him learn to surf. I don’t know. Maybe this is a bad idea.
Larry gets a hair transplant
What else could fundamentally change the nature of this series besides Larry taking charge of his male pattern baldness and getting hair plugs? This would be like the time jump from Battlestar Galactica or that episode of Alf where he gets captured by the Air Force.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...ots-speculation?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Facebook
Curb Your Enthusiasm is the best sitcom of the past 20 years. There is no argument to be made here, though if one wanted to advocate for a tie between Larry David’s groundbreaking series and the original British version of The Office, I would listen. Since the pilot movie aired in 1999, Curb has been consistently hilarious and cleverly plotted. No matter how long we have to wait between seasons, it’s always a pleasure to watch Larry conduct his symphony of human misery.
We’ve waited five years for another installment, and finally, word broke that HBO would commission another batch of episodes. Details were scarce in the network’s announcement, but that gives the internet room to do what it does best: wildly speculate on topics it has no inside knowledge of because it’s fun. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do here, folks.
Larry David resurrecting Curb Your Enthusiasm for HBO
Based on the fact that I have watched this entire television series, I can tell you that season nine will likely have an overarching storyline that carries through all the episodes. The first two years were mostly standalone weekly stories, but season three experimented with serialization – the episodes built to the grand opening of a restaurant Larry invested in with the English actor Michael York. By season four – the season where Larry joins the Broadway cast of The Producers – the plots became so interconnected that some jokes wouldn’t pay off for multiple episodes. The culmination of this evolution was the masterful Seinfeld reunion season, a premise that easily could have devolved into parody but never did. It would be a big surprise if the ambition of the writing decreased for season nine.
So, what could the story of season nine be? Larry’s gotten divorced, dated, had a live-in girlfriend, acted in musicals, searched for his birth parents and ruined a variety of dinner parties, weddings, funerals and birthdays. If I might indulge myself briefly, here are a few suggestions:
Larry gets a job directing a movie
One of the rare blemishes on Larry’s post-Seinfeld career is his one and only feature film directing job, the 1998 comedy Sour Grapes which starred Craig Bierko and Steven Weber as brothers who fight over a fortune won at an Atlantic City casino. I’ve tried to convince myself that Sour Grapes is funny many times in my life. I’ve failed every time. It’s mirthless, staged as conventionally as possible, and edited without any sense of momentum. It’s a trainwreck, one that he rarely discusses in the media. Why not use it as fodder for a season of Curb?
Larry moves to the Eastside of Los Angeles
Curb often mines comedy from putting Larry inside a culture he doesn’t understand and watching him fail to integrate himself. Imagine Larry, single and wealthy, deciding that he’s going to move to Silver Lake or Echo Park and attempt to recapture his youth. Then, imagine him waiting in line for a $10 juice.
The Larry-less season
Can I interest you in 10 episodes of the continuing adventures of Leon Black
Curb goes Hawaiian
All the greatest TV shows go Hawaiian eventually. The Brady Bunch. Happy Days. Saved by the Bell. Beverly Hills 90210. MTV’s The Real World. You know, the real quality programs. Send Larry to Hawaii for awhile. Make him get a tan. Have him learn to surf. I don’t know. Maybe this is a bad idea.
Larry gets a hair transplant
What else could fundamentally change the nature of this series besides Larry taking charge of his male pattern baldness and getting hair plugs? This would be like the time jump from Battlestar Galactica or that episode of Alf where he gets captured by the Air Force.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...ots-speculation?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Facebook
