Saturday, January 8, 2011

Top 10 TV Shows of 2010: #8 Louie


Similar to my number nine show, there's a really good chance you didn't watch this. Unlike other shows though, it fits this comedy well. Louis C.K. stars as a version of himself who is a comedian and a divorced father of two in the dating world. He also directs, writes, produces,and if I've been told correctly he even owns the cameras they use to shoot the show. C.K. has been one of my favorite (top three easily) stand-up comedians for as long as I have known his existence. Seeing him have his own show again (Lucky Louie), combined with the creative freedom he's been given by FX makes this show hilarious and extremely refreshing.

The show is built in a way that really no show has been structured before, most certainly never a 30-minute comedy. Each episode has two or three vignettes (or small, unrelated stories) with C.K.'s stand-up placed between, and sometimes during, each of these stories. What I like most about this show is how at one point it will be placed in the very normal, very real world and then suddenly it will enter a fantasy version of that world or go to the edges of C.K.'s surreal mind. For example, I knew I loved this show when in the first episode our hero was on a first date with a woman. The date was going horribly, which in itself combined with C.K.'s deadpan humor and facial expressions was funny enough. Suddenly as the two characters sit down at a park bench with the women still going on and on a helicopter lands behind them; Louie runs to it, jumps in, and flies away from the awful woman.

This show goes anywhere from a lazy day in the apartment, walking around New York, his childhood battles with nuns, and conversations with God himself. Even though all these things occur I always found myself laughing hardest at his stand-up, the thing that I've loved and enjoyed for a long while now. I can safely say I didn't laugh harder in the first season than when C.K. verbally assaults a heckler (who is sitting at a booth literally on stage with him) during one of his stand-up sets. It was relentless, unforgiving, and frickin' funny.

If you like humor, and I'm not talking about the kind assisted with laugh tracks, real humor, then please check out this show. It will go places that may make you uncomfortable, but that's the point. No other comedy does that on television and if you've ever found yourself laughing at darker comedy before then you need to at least take a look at Louie.

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