Louis is on FX Thursday nights at 10:30. I have to admit this show can shock me and it did last Thursday when a long discussion of or** sex between Louis and guest star Melissa Leo took place in her car. It was bold and blush-worthy for me. Yet in a movie, it would not have seemed surprising or novel.
According to a recent article I read somewhere, Louis CK has traded a bigger budget for total control of the show and it reflects his bawdy standup routine. This show is not afraid to be outrageous and not afraid to mimic the ordinariness of life in other scenes.
I think it is probably the most original comedy since Seinfeld and before that Larry Sanders but not just because of its X-rated humor. A breakup played out brilliantly in an earlier scene without any bawdiness. What other TV shows have broke ground like this? Perhaps in their style as well as in their subject?
Incidentally, Phillip Maciak at the LA REVIEW OF BOOKS writes wonderful pieces about TV-mostly recently THE NEWSROOM. I encourage you to read and support this publication which is stepping in for all the newspaper culture pages that have disappeared.
6 comments:
We have watched the first two seasons of this via Netflix and LOVE it. I like the show because it isn't predictable, and every episode is never the same formula. Up until season 3, Louis was not only writing it all but even doing the editing. I really like the guy, even as some of his humor crosses into stuff a little more crass than I prefer, it nonetheless is pretty damn honest.
Louis has a great interview on the B.S. Report (an ESPN podcast) on 6/26. It's about an hour long; funny, and insightful as to how he works. It's well worth listening to.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/archive?id=2864045
Thanks so much, Chris, and I agree about his humor sometimes making me cringe--but usually in an okay, artful way.
Louis is bit hit and miss at times, but the best episodes can be exceptional, like the mom episode from season 1, and the Joan Rivers episode last season. There are several shows that rival Louis for originality and are as equally as daring, including Episodes, Weeds, the incredibly great (and too short-lived) Lisa Kudrow show 'The Comeback', and of course South Park, which had maybe 4-5 seasons of just brilliant and outrageous satire.
I guess I just don't have the same taste as some of you here. I watched his first series on HBO and I didn't like it at all. I don't like WEEDS or Lisa Kudrow either.
I suppose I ought to give this one a try, judging by the raves but I have to say, I don't think MAD MEN is the greatest show in the history of television either.
There, I said it.
Jeff M.
I don't think his first series worked nearly as well as this one--he has more control. Lisa Kudrow--I am a bit ambivalent about too. She always seems too mannered. But I love MAD MEN-its such a powerful critique of that for me. So we agree on some things but not others.
I'm not one to listen to when it comes to TV, because I don't like much of anything. Prior to the last couple years, the only two shows I'd made it all the way through and loved were Deadwood and The Wire. Made it most of the way through Battlestar Galactica before bailing. Started Lost, Weeds, True Blood, and Mad Men and bailed early on all of them. Didn't get through three episodes of The Shield.
Besides Louie, the only ones I've gotten through all of on Netflix recently are 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. Both are fun, though 30 Rock is more hit and miss of the two, IMO.
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