If you like "Friends", you'd better skip this entirely.

fedor8

TLSS is easily the best U.S. sit-com, if one can call it that, of all time. Only "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" come close. TLSS has everything that garbage like "Friends" and "The Bill Cosby Show" haven't got: subtle humour, rich characterization, intelligent story-lines, great laughs, an almost perfect cast, and unlike those two miserable sit-coms TLSS does not cater to the worst/dumbest demographic viewing groups, hence its lack of broad appeal to the masses of morons who seek banana-peel humour when they switch on their TVs.

And very importantly: no laugh track.

At the core of the series are Larry, Arty, and Hank. Larry is insecure, talented, self-obsessed, and paranoid. Arty is tough, no-nonsense, determined, direct, and full of energy. Hank is slimy, egotistical, arrogant, sycophantic, talent-free, and generally quite pathetic. All three actors playing these three people are brilliant, in totally different ways, but if I had to pick one character that is the most fun to watch it would have to be Hank, of course. After all, pathetic characters in comedy shows usually get most of the glory. As far as comic timing goes, Shandling's is as perfect as anyone I've seen anywhere. The side-characters are very good, too, even the otherwise annoying Garofalo is watchable.

The many guest stars only make the series more interesting, especially since there was very little effort to glorify these morons; quite to the contrary, many of them agreed to make themselves look foolish for the good of the show. Most of them pull it off well. Dana Carvey is perhaps the most successful in adding quality to the already flawless cast, whereas someone like Regis Philbin was embarrassing to watch, even though that particular episode was good.

Unfortunately, I have seen only about a third of all the episodes, but from those I would pick out the following as the stand-outs (keeping in mind that I haven't seen a single anything-less-than-very-good episode): "Party", "Hank's Sex Tape", "Next Stop Bottom", and "Hank's New Assistant".

score /10

fedor8 9 November 2007

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1760542/