"Bored To Death" Is Annoyingly Cute
Do you want to have Zach Galifianakis' babies? If you're the lesbian couple at the open of tonight's HBO series "Bored to Death" well, then you're in luck.
The premise of the show, if you've thus far been able to avoid it, is the misadventures of Jonathan Ames, played by Jason Schwartzman, who becomes so bored with his life that he decides to become an amateur detective. Ames seems like Schwartzman's Rushmore character all grown up, still trying on vocations that he has seemingly no prior formal education for.
New York as a milieu plays a major role, primarily Brooklyn, setting the stage for cliches of the macrobiotic vegetarian masseuse, calling Brooklyn the new Manhattan (wasn't that 5 years ago?), eating suckling pig at a artisanal greenpoint eatery that takes it's food very seriously.
Ted Danson is inexplicably in the picture, playing the editor of a magazine and the grizzled man about town. If you're having a tough time picturing the aged Danson as a Mr. Big type, you're not alone. He plays well as a comic foil for Schwartzman but not so much as a sophisticate.
It makes for good light Sunday viewing, but HBO has been in a major rut when it comes to new original comedies since Sex and the City went off the air. Curb is having one of the best seasons to date, but that's dipping in the old well. If Bored To Death is their best shot at taking over when Curb has expired, they're aiming pretty low.