It’s Chandler’s Fault!

If you’re at all like me, you have been searching--mostly in vain--for a new TV comedy series you can look forward to watching every week. I’d almost given up hope (Curb Your Enthusiasm has never done it for me; 30 Rock used up all of its jokes several seasons ago; don’t even mention the appalling Parks and Recreation, which makes poor Amy Poehler look untalented; and Mad Men has too many characters who look alike).

But now, thanks to the Divine Sarah (Weinman, that is), I’ve fallen in love with a show called Bored to Death, which began last Sunday on HBO. It stars Jason Schwartzman as creator Jonathan Ames’ fictional alter ego, also named Jonathan Ames. Jonathan is a frustratingly blocked writer, a pothead, and a white-wine tippler who falls into a funk after he loses his girlfriend. He consoles himself by reading Farewell, My Lovely, and that inspires him to advertise his services on the Internet as a private eye.

Ted Danson, playing Jonathan’s former boss, George, is equally impressive on this series. He steals every scene in which he appears as a loonier, more endearing version of Arthur Frobisher, the amoral business tycoon he portrays on FX’s Damages. When Jonathan asks George if he really needs to take so much Viagra, George primly replies: “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. My heart medicine and heavy drinking have taken a toll.”

Jonathan doesn’t have many qualms about his new job. “I say that I’m not licensed, and that makes it more legal ... ish,” he tells his best friend and fellow Brooklyn loser, a graphic artist named Ray (Zach Galifianakis), who is appalled.

“Within 20 minutes of the pilot,” writes Weinman in Maclean’s magazine, “Jonathan morphs from a commitment-phobic struggling novelist and magazine writer recently dumped by his girlfriend Suzanne (Juno’s Olivia Thirlby) to an unlicensed P.I. on the lookout--with suitably disastrous and cringe-comic results--for the missing sister of a college co-ed who saw his ad on Craigslist. The impetus? A frayed paperback of ... Ames’s favorite Chandler novel ...” Weinman remarks in her own blog: “After watching the first three episodes, I’m still not sure if, to use a well-worn cliché, Bored to Death is going to play in Peoria, but I have to hand it to HBO for doing their best to try.”

Another interesting new show, especially for time-travel addicts, is ABC’s FlashForward. It’s in the Quantum Leap genre, stars the believable Joseph Fiennes, and might just be worth a look.