Larry David and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" returned to HBO Sunday,...

Larry David and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" returned to HBO Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, after a 6-year hiatus. Credit: HBO / John P. Johnson

THE SERIES “Curb Your Enthusiasm”

WHEN|WHERE Premiered Sunday on HBO

WHAT IT’S ABOUT  On the ninth season premiere — the eighth season’s finale, by the way, aired way back on Sept. 11, 2011 — Larry (Larry David) foists an incompetent assistant, Mara (Carrie Brownstein), off on Susie Greene (Susie Essman), hence the episode title, “Foisted!”  Leon Black (J.B. Smoove) steps into the role of LD’s assistant, but proves a little less competent. Larry, meanwhile, has been busy since last we saw him. He’s written a musical, “Fatwa!” but when he promotes it on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” it angers one viewer in particular. Meanwhile, Larry has an opinion about the impending nuptials of Betty (Julie Goldman). The consequences of this opinion are unfortunate.

  MY SAY The universe that long held Larry David of “Curb” always was a small, detached claustrophobic one — all the better to wreak havoc on those around him, and then, due to a reverb effect, wreak havoc right back on Larry. He was his own worst enemy, his best material, easiest punchline and television’s most reliable proof of Murphy’s law. Sunday’s ninth season launch opened up that universe a bit — all the way to Iran — but the fundamentals are intact.  LD remains LD,  and “Curb” remains “Curb.” David’s Law hasn’t gone anywhere — or been updated, either.

 The chief pleasure of Sunday’s  “Foisted!” was a pretty (pretTAY) good punchline involving a punch. Also: Larry’s shower battle with his soft soap container was the battle millions of others have waged and lost. His deliberation on door opening etiquette — “type plus distance equals no-door-hold open” — was pure LD.  Richard Lewis’ put-down of Larry — “I’m laughing at your entire existence” — was one he’s put down before. Meanwhile, Leon’s still hanging out. Jeff (Jeff Garlin) is still doing whatever Jeff does. Susie still spits out invective with the blunt force of a jackhammer.

 What’s strange if not quite off-putting is that nothing and no one actually has changed, other than in the way a passage of six years afflicts most people: The cast got older.  But since 2011, TV, politics and everything else in between has changed profoundly.  There’s now a president who back then was essentially a game show host. At least when it’s on, TV’s hottest show is a dragon-breathing monster hit about man’s inhumanity to man. The 2017 best-drama Emmy winner is a streaming series about man’s inhumanity to women.

 TV’s a much harder-edged place since 2011, but more inclusive too: It has embraced transgender people, and bestowed Emmys on African-Americans in categories (best actress in drama, best actor in drama and comedy) that had hardly ever even nominated them. 

Larry’s universe stayed small while the TV one got larger. Yet now, stepping out of a time machine, is his classic series on showbiz narcissism dating from a long-ago moment when narcissism was funny. It’s great have an old friend back, even better to see he’s still the best part of his own joke. It’s also reasonable to wonder whether that joke has grown just a little bit stale.

BOTTOM LINE Great to have an old friend back, but “Curb” feels a little dated and stale.

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