Bored To Death is one of those shows where you almost wish it was bad, just so you could use the title itself as a cheap gag review. Unfortunately, that isn’t possible in this particular instance. Once again – following in the footsteps of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Flight Of The Conchords, Entourage and others – HBO have managed to produce a fantastically enjoyable sitcom.
In this particular case, the title describes the state of mind of the protagonist of the series, Jonathan Ames; the creator of the series author-inserting himself as he wonders ‘what if I had really gone through with that crazy thought?’. The crazy thought in question? Putting up an ad on Craigslist, offering his services as an unlicensed private detective. The ensuing series derives its story and a fair chunk of its humour from the outlandish situations that this leads Jonathan, his best friend Ray and his boss George into.
But the real genius of the show comes not from the story, but from the rather surreal blending of stoner and detective-noir sensibilities, along with the quirky dialogue, characters and situations that this produces. Standing out from the crowd is The Hangover’s Zach Galifianakis, undermining his recent foul-mouthed simpleton routine to produce an actual character that one can empathise with: a frustrated cartoonist whose over-bearing girlfriend believes he has deep psychological issues, which ironically all stem from her denying him a passionate relationship. Jason Schwartzman does his usual schtick as Jonathan, and does it well, with the ever-reliable Ted Danson giving a wonderfully insane turn as George.
Then there’s those outlandish situations, with the highlight of these being a raid on a blackmailer’s house that is played rather straight. Apart from the fact that Jonathan, Ray and Chris are armed with ice-scrapers and a toy unicorn named Janet. To say it raised a belly laugh is to not do the moment justice.
Perhaps the only problem is that the stories tying these likeable characters and wonderfully funny moments together are rather thin on the ground, with the series – quite like its stoner characters – always finding a reason to not actually concentrate on anything vaguely resembling a narrative. Instead Bored To Death is content to be a series of moments in the life of Jonathan Ames, that just so happen to be in chronological order. But there is the promise that the already-aired-in-the-States second season has far stronger stories, so as a starting point, this could’ve done a lot worse.
To conclude, this is more than worth your time and money. From the dialogue quirks to intelligent pop culture references to some wonderfully silly set pieces, the only thing keeping Bored To Death from five star glory is relatively inconsistent story-telling, but in truth, there’s so much here to like, and even more to love, that it’s easily forgivable.
Released on DVD on Monday 20th June 2011 by Warner Home Video.