Curb Your Enthusiasm - Series 6

As good as always

if you like seasons 1-5 you will not be disapointed, it has every element needed to make a fantastic comedy!!

[Highly rated reviewer]

"Look at the freaks " Mr McEnroe

To sustain the level of comic and writing genius that Larry David had done over the previous five seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm is some achievement. Even if you think that the series tailed off a bit after season 3 we are still talking very high levels of comedy writing and performing -certainly way superior to anything else around .Season 6 seems to have divided opinion among those who think it’s the best ever and those who think it’s a series too far. I , with typical contrariness and even-handedness fall somewhere in the midlle.There is much here to enjoy - the scenarios are still sharp and the performances still terrific but occasionally it slips into laziness - the joke based around Larry supposedly masturbating when actually doing something else is used too often and having become seasoned observers of the show you sometimes know where something is heading .

So in season 6 Larry is heading for divorce ( frankly it’s a surprise it took this long) , has taken in the Blacks , a family who have been made homeless after a hurricane and who are errr Black. Much is made of this and it is very funny . There are the usual foul ups , misunderstandings , contretemps as Larry is still unable to put the brakes on his borderline misanthropy. Larry has opinions like the rest of us but where we in social situations can defer to societal niceties and keep them to our self's, Larry cannot. If something irks him he complains....and keeps complaining, he is a human limpet in that he cannot let go .He is also a man who exudes surface charm but is a seething bag of neuroses and constantly tries to bend the world to his will only for it to snap back and smack him in the face.

There are cameo’s for John McEnroe( very good) , Ben Stiller, and Steve Coogan( playing Larry’s unfortunate therapist) and the excellent as ever Michael McKean as a director who Larry “recommends” to Richard Lewis. and it all concludes on a surprisingly affecting and optimistic note and it must be said a completely unexpected one.

The Extras on this DVD are okay but nothing to get excited about. A roughly ten minute making off thing which adds little , a gag reel and most revealingly excerpts of a live show from New York with Larry being probed by Susie Essman( who plays the hilariously foul mouthed Susie Green ) where he reveals the extent to which the show is improvised ( there is no script at all just basic scene outlines) and says he is turning more like “TV Larry “ everyday. This section is edited and would have been better left so we could see the whole show.

Even if season six isn’t the show at it’s absolute peak we are talking elevated levels of the genre here. It’s still worth five stars. It s still glorious and hypnotically uncomfortable to watch at times. Season 7 was scheduled to start filming December 2008 and if it’s as good as season 6 then I for one will be very happy though obviously I will try to curb my enthusiasm.