By Dave Shiflett (Bloomberg)— It takes some nerve to name a new television series “Bored To Death” – just as it would be to name a new CD “Very Lame Stuff.” The title might quickly become the project’s epitaph. HBO’s new Sunday night series isn’t boring a bit. Nor, to be sure is it profound, riveting or likely to change your life. It’s an amusing half-hour that may be around a while. Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) is a struggling 30-something Brooklyn writer whose girlfriend Suzanne (Olivia Thirlby) flies the coop for standard reasons: he’s been spending too much time with his vino and weed. One senses Jonathan might have also yacked her to distraction: he talks so much you’d suspect he enhances his pot with a dusting of amphetamine. He’s thin as a pipe cleaner with a tongue that rarely rests. He also seems to say whatever pops into his head. Early on he tells a pair of furniture haulers that he’s surprised to see “Jewish movers” undertaking “such muscle-oriented work.” After a suitable glare, one of the movers asks Jonathan if he’s “just another self-hating New York Jew” to which he responds: “Yes I am.” Yet that seems an overly harsh self-appraisal. Jonathan may be a bit of a schlub at times yet he’s also likable, sympathetic, and in his own way, inspirational. Writers in the viewing audience may especially identify with the poor hack. While Jonathan can talk up a storm he’s at a total loss for words when it comes to finishing his second novel. Like many with this affliction he seeks solace in writer fluid – a cup of wine – and also dips into Raymond Chandler’s “Farewell My Lovely.” Suddenly, inspiration strikes. Jonathan places an ad on Craigslist offering his services as an “unlicensed” private detective. He soon snags his first client, a woman whose sister has disappeared. Being a PI, it appears, is an excellent way to meet the ladies, at least in television land. The show plays on several detective novel mainstays. Jonathan, playing the tough guy at a bar, takes a big slug of whiskey, which goes down like a shot of lye. He plies sources with cash and wears a trench coat, yet he is not half as salty as many PIs, even reprimanding a hotel clerk for dropping F-bombs. Viewers who prefer their love on the rocks will find the show deeply pleasing. There’s not an intact relationship anywhere in New York, it seems. Jonathan’s friend Ray Hueston, (Zach Galifianakis), a comic book illustrator, is spending far too much time in the ranks of the celibate for his own comfort. He’s down to the point of getting weepy. Then there’s George Christopher (Ted Danson), Jonathan’s silver-haired magazine editor boss who’s got his own pot and vino regimen, plus a Viagra prescription. Despite those enhancements he’s bored with life and complains of “death by a thousand dull conversations.” You could almost feel sorry for him if he weren’t so oily and vain. Jonathan eventually gets his girl, who to no surprise has romance troubles of her own: her meth-head boyfriend is trying out a romantic twist on the Stockholm syndrome. No telling here if the ploy works, though the show ends with Jonathan taking a call from another damsel in distress. All he needs to do now is figure out how to charge his clients by the word.
