Season 3 opens with Mel Brooks seeing Larry performing some karaoke and quickly impressed with his singing abilities. He then invites Larry to audition to star in a Broadway production. But the deal quickly goes south once Mel hits Larry in the head and Larry's doctor drools on him.
Larry David continues to push his semi-fictional character into the bowels of self-indulgence, but just when you think he's gone too deep, something reels him back in and Curb... retains its place as the funniest of the funny on television today.
We are facing a fourth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David's brilliant, cinema verite-style, semi-improvised sitcom, in which the Seinfeld co-creator plays what he calls, incredibly, a "more likable" version of himself.
It takes at least two episodes for Mr. David's television persona to regain some degree of cozy familiarity. And that discomfort is one of the things that make Curb Your Enthusiasm so unusual and so funny.
Let it be known that time has not mellowed our bald, bold, selfish hero -- nor has it enlarged his heart, which remains as small and hard (but not nearly as sweet) as a Skittle.
