Bored to Death Series Premiere Review

Jason Schwartzman Stars as Neurotic Writer Turned Private Eye on HBO

Sep 26, 2009

HBO's new comedy doesn't debut as strongly as some of its contemporaries, but if it lets its premise breathe and its three leads bluster, it will soon join their ranks.

A solid hour of programming starring self-hating New York Jews isn’t TV. It’s HBO – or at least Sunday-night HBO for the next 10 weeks, with Bored to Death and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Larry David’s show and the Jason Schwartzman-starring series make an odd couple. Curb Your Enthusiasm is brash, uncomfortable and unscripted. Bored to Death is hushed hipster humor – a postmodern spin on detective noir that’s yet another vehicle to view arrested male development through a pop-culture prism.

And the pilot gets so caught up in the plot’s conceit – neurotic failing writer moonlights as a private eye – that it fails to fully define its three male leads’ occupations (although they are occupied by plenty of worries).

That’s not to say Bored to Death doesn’t work, or lacks room to grow. In HBO terms, It's pitched between Flight of the Conchords’ surreal Big Apple wackiness and Hung’s simultaneous angst over occupation and existence – not a bad place to be.

Schwartzman is not a Jonathan Ames, but he plays one on TV. (The real-life author created the series and gave his name to Schwartzman’s character.) Just as the TV Jonathan acts out a fantasy, so is the real Ames – played by an actor who, not even 30 yet, is turning out to resemble an insecure metrosexual version of Luke Wilson.

Bored to Death opens as Jonathan’s girlfriend (Olivia Thirlby of Juno) is moving out. In a tower of books left behind, Jonathan’s eye wanders to Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely.

Fueled by anger and white wine, Jonathan posts a Craigslist ad offering his services as a private detective. Soon enough, someone comes calling for him to find her sister, and that moonlight turns out to be more blinding than he thought.

Bored to Death is apt to improve once it embroils Jonathan’s pals in his escapades. Ray (Zach Galifianakis of The Hangover) is a comic-book artist whose anxiety is influencing his art. (“Therapists are the heroes of listening,” Ray tells Jonathan.) And George (Ted Danson) is Jonathan’s drug-craving boss in the world of the literati.

Each gets a couple of strong scenes in the pilot – namely Danson, who has aged into a human version of the Muppets’ Sam the Eagle and expresses vast world-weariness in a tiny bathroom stall.

But in setting up the basic shtick, Schwartzman mostly goes it alone in the pilot and fares well. No matter how comically inept he is – and no doubt will continue to be – Jonathan is clearly treating his private-eye work as field research. (It will be no shocker if it dovetails with progress on his stalled-out second novel.)

Feigning P.I. machismo as portrayed in Chandler, Jonathan finds out it’s actually a money-hemorrhaging job – one that gets him trapped in a hotel room with a British bloke in bikini briefs. The only suspense in the encounter stems from how a guy with a gift for gab – and recognizing others with dashed dreams – will emotionally negotiate while negotiating his emotions.

Bored to Death won’t be the sort of show that sees Jonathan get his nose slashed J.J. Gittes-style, but it might toss out a jape on that idea. (Maybe a scraped elbow.)

Time will tell on whether the human element of Bored to Death persists or how relatable it will continue to be, but the upside is this: Thanks to Schwartzman’s musical career and ear (singing the title theme as the one-man Coconut Records), there will have been episodic detective series with far-worse soundtracks.

The copyright of the article Bored to Death Series Premiere Review in Prime Time Sitcoms is owned by Nick Rogers. Permission to republish Bored to Death Series Premiere Review in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.