Channel Surfing: "Clear History"

Larry David

Welcome to a new column called Channel Surfing, in which I sporadically look at current TV shows and talk about them. These are not ones that I care to write weekly recaps for and are instead reflections either on the episode, the series, or particular moments. This will hopefully help to share personal opinions as well as discover entertainment on the outer pantheon that I feel is well worth checking out, or in some cases, shows that are weird enough to talk about, but should never be seen.

One of the perks of modern TV is being able to produce particular programming at your own pace. In fact, it is surprising to know that Breaking Bad started off of its first season in the middle of the cold, desolate grounds of January. While the traditional model doesn't allow for programming to make nearly as rapid a jump from January to August in the course of five years, it does allow for a lot more interesting prospects. In fact, it has been over two years since we last saw Larry David perform his zany comedy in the hit HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm.

What has he done in that free time? While there's plenty to suggest, nothing is more significant to this piece than the recent TV movie Clear History in which he plays Nathan: a man who made a few bad investments and lost billions. He seeks revenge on his former boss Will (Jon Hamm) and ends up falling in love with Rhonda (Kate Hudson). The story, while having a beginning, middle, and end, is essentially just an excuse for David to play a character different enough from his Curb Your Enthusiasm role, though not enough to make a distinguished impact.

For those who are fans of David's comedy of delusion, this will not be a waste entirely. As he is known to do, he presents absurd ideas and then spends five minutes dissecting why he is not at fault. There's plenty of joy to get out of Clear History and its twisted moments, but the bigger question is: what's the point? I am aware that sometimes it gets boring playing specific characters, but David is not doing anything new that wouldn't have been better encapsulated in a 30 minute episode.

There's no boundaries to complain about, either. For all of the crass jokes about a woman who gave oral sex to the band Chicago and a former housemaid who lost weight, it just feels like observation humor made into a TV movie. While David is incompetent at making bad entertainment, he doesn't necessarily seem to be aging well with this flaccid story. Nobody really shines and the big payoff comes and goes without much gratification. The only real positive thing to say on Clear History is that it is better than HBO's other movie Phil Spector. Even then, it is nowhere near as inspired as Behind the Candelabra nor is it deserving to be close to it in length.

I will be upfront in saying that I admire what HBO has done to the TV programming concept. In fact, I have reviewed numerous shows on this blog before. The ability to tell a story without concern of commercial interruptions is something that you take for granted until the act breaks on a show take you out of the mood. HBO is also in charge of plenty quality, genre defining shows such as the Sopranos and the Wire. Their freedom for profanity, nudity, and just about anything is something enviable to other networks that try to be edgy, but have restrictive confines in terms of censorship.

No comedy series on HBO has lasted as long as Curb Your Enthusiasm and none will probably match its impact. While it was initially seen as the lesser Seinfeld, it grew to have its own personality, largely thanks to the improvisational style of humor and Larry David, whose curmudgeon has earned numerous Emmy nominations and a few wins. It is no wonder that he is in charge of his own schedule and can come and go as he pleases. Still, the tease that Clear History was a return to the network only suggested that he didn't care.

The movie is packed with an impressive batch of high caliber comedians, including Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Michael Keaton, Paul Scheer, J.B. Smoove, and Philip Baker Hall. All of them are enjoyable to listen to and if this was just a round table of people talking about random stuff, then Clear History would have been far more successful. For the time being, it should be posted as the downside to HBO's revolutionary business model. It almost allows too much freedom and with that, comes not enough restraint to produce a product. While I am glad that this isn't associated as a terrible Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, it doesn't explain why we just couldn't get that.

This isn't really a great entry into the Channel Surfing column, but more an excuse to vent my opinion. Some people are just not fit for a full length film, and I feel like Larry David isn't one of them. It didn't succeed in Whatever Works and outside of the 30 minute frame, it just begins to seem meandering and painful. Despite the story initially being ingenious and allowing for plenty of banter about dumb-looking cars, there isn't much else worth dissecting. It almost seemed like a good 20 minutes of the experience is him just complaining about something he would normally only take 10% of that time to do.