A funny thing happened on the way to the latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David's acerbic, exploration of a faux Larry David's post-Seinfeld life was just as funny as the first six seasons, but my TV-watching posture changed while watching season seven. From a rolled up in a ball bear-attack crouch as I cringed at David's relentless attack on civilized morals and manners, I actually loosened up a bit, even leaning toward the TV. Because there in front of me was Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer. Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards all get together for a Seinfeld reunion. They're not rerunning on TBS, but playing themselves for real in David's fake Hollywood, and later in the season their old Seinfeld doppelgangers.
Larry David's Larry David doesn't go soft, though. He's actually against the reunion, but agrees to it once he figures out how he can use it to reunite with his semi-estranged wife Cheryl by casting her in the show. And the season is still full of uncomfortable observations about dating a disabled person, bare midriffs, coffee table stains, oral sex in moving cars and saliva stained pens. The highlight of the season is easily the Seinfeld-centric episodes, where we get to meet the cast all over again, and Larry David forbid, feel the pangs of nostalgia. Best of all is actually watching a brand new Seinfeld episode. This Curb is about making a new Seinfeld, but they actually put in the effort to write a real, new episode and let entire scenes run from beginning to end in between all the behind the scenes making of a show within a show. (For the most surreal show within a show moment, watch Larry David play a fake Larry David playing Jason Alexander playing George, who was based on the real Larry David.)
In the extra-features interviews, the cast and Larry David admit they actually used Curb as an excuse to shoot a reunion show that they would have never done on its own terms, in part to amend for Seinfeld's much reviled ending. (An ending that I thought was a perfect fit!) The funniest extra is a piece about gathering up the original Seinfeld set, 80 percent of it stored away, in need of cleaning but brought back to the original sound stage where Seinfeld began.
Larry David's Larry David doesn't go soft, though. He's actually against the reunion, but agrees to it once he figures out how he can use it to reunite with his semi-estranged wife Cheryl by casting her in the show. And the season is still full of uncomfortable observations about dating a disabled person, bare midriffs, coffee table stains, oral sex in moving cars and saliva stained pens. The highlight of the season is easily the Seinfeld-centric episodes, where we get to meet the cast all over again, and Larry David forbid, feel the pangs of nostalgia. Best of all is actually watching a brand new Seinfeld episode. This Curb is about making a new Seinfeld, but they actually put in the effort to write a real, new episode and let entire scenes run from beginning to end in between all the behind the scenes making of a show within a show. (For the most surreal show within a show moment, watch Larry David play a fake Larry David playing Jason Alexander playing George, who was based on the real Larry David.)
In the extra-features interviews, the cast and Larry David admit they actually used Curb as an excuse to shoot a reunion show that they would have never done on its own terms, in part to amend for Seinfeld's much reviled ending. (An ending that I thought was a perfect fit!) The funniest extra is a piece about gathering up the original Seinfeld set, 80 percent of it stored away, in need of cleaning but brought back to the original sound stage where Seinfeld began.
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