Curb Your Enthusiasm? I think I have

After I watched the finale to the seventh series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which Larry David writes and produces a Seinfeld reunion show, I found myself writing some kind of attempt to digest it. It turns out I may have been purging a poison from within me.

I have to admit I was excited when I heard about the plot for this series. I love Seinfeld, and the idea of revisiting it appealed to me more than I would have liked to admit. And then it arrived, and the actors all showed up, and they were all acutely aware of how incredibly massive the idea of them teaming up again was, and that was not thrilling television. But fine, whatever. That was all ‘behind the scenes’. The show itself – the parts of it we would actually see – would be good, I was pretty sure about that. And I tried to like it, and I suppose, really, I did, but not for the reasons they wanted me to.

It’s not that the Seinfeld scenes were un-Seinfeldian, the problem was the eleven-year gap. The actors were older, they’d clearly changed – yet here they still were, same apartment, same coffee shop. And of course, that was the only way it could ever be, but at the same time it kind of missed the point. Seinfeld was about the journey. Changes happen in life and you accept them on the fly – relationships suddenly end out of the blue one day, people quit their jobs. But when you shoehorn change there’s something false about it – something that seems written. Insert an upheaveal into the unseen years, and suddenly the same-ness of the rest of it is called into doubt.

Jason Alexander did well, stepping back into George as if he’d never left. But it was really an impersonation of George at the same time; not funny because it was funny, but because it reminded you so vividly of what made that character so amusing to begin with. Jerry was much the same as he always was, and Elaine was really a non-character — ruined, perhaps, by the extreme unlikeability of Julia Louis-Dreyfuss ‘off camera’. And Kramer – well, on paper he was perfect, but Michael Richards just seemed embarassed to be there altogether, and the energy he had filled that role with in the past was sadly absent.

Still, this isn’t all criticism. There was something undeniably delicious about the hyper-real, post-postmodernism of it all. Actors playing characters of themselves, playing characters: art imitating life imitating art. It really showed, conclusively, that a genuine reunion show would be a bad mistake, yet still successfully satisfied the geeky yearning for just a little more time with those characters. In that regard, it could never fail to deliver because all we needed was the set and four extremely available actors. And the desperation of it – masquerading, perhaps, as inspiration – probably belies the problems the latest episodes of Curb have been exhibiting.

Some of its strengths are becoming indistinguishable from its weaknesses. One of the best – and most surprising – moments in the finale was Larry attempting to play George. In another reality the role would certainly have been his to begin with, and it’s clear that after seven series (and one unexpectedly good performance in Woody Allen’s Whatever Works) David’s confidence as an actor has grown. But unfortunately, his greatest strength – writing – has not improved so readily. What started out as explorations of genuine social pitfalls has turned into, simply, people being unreasonable assholes. That they can be in real life is certainly true, but the situation in this episode – an acquaintance expecting a tip for a small favour, and then demanding a ridiculously unfair counter-favour in return – stretches believability. Would Larry’s friends really think that he was in the wrong here, that he had a skewed understanding of etiquette? And whilst I’ve mentioned it, the whole ‘tip’ thing in Curb is becoming farcical. I’m tired of the plot device, because it’s used in every episode and it’s always the same, and it’s always equally devoid of relatability or humour.

Susie is another tired old trope. Calling Larry a bald fuck is funny the first ten times, but now I can’t stand the sight of her petty, aggressive, selfish, Jewish-mother bullshit schtick. She has ceased to be a character, and is now just an awful, hate-filled loudmouth.

To be fair, this series has made me laugh, but I’m not convinced it isn’t just doing slightly racier re-treads of ideas it’s already explored. A lot of those ideas are, in turn, just racier versions of themes explored on Seinfeld in the first place. Larry talking about a nine year old girl with a ‘rash on her pussy’ is funny when it leads people to believe he’s some sort of incredibly-unabashed paedophile, but is it any different than the ‘Mommy, that bald man is in the bathroom and there’s something hard in his pants!’ moment in series two?

In fact, yes, it is. In the earlier episode Larry was at least aware that people would misinterpret an entirely innocent situation, but now he’s seemingly oblivious that attaching a sexualised word to a pre-pubescent girl will give people the wrong idea. It makes it entirely less realistic, less believable, which sadly makes it a cheap laugh.

I know I’ll still watch this show, if there are more episodes, but I’m not convinced it hasn’t jumped the shark. Whatever it was that made Larry David leave Seinfeld by its eighth season – when it was on, if anything, more of a high than the point when it ended for good – seems to have abandoned him on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Let’s hope it’s just because I’m completely wrong, and he still has something good left up his sleeve.