I've been kinda umming and ahhing about Louis CK's new internet show Horace and Pete because it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be - it's very stagey (as in theatrical) and light on jokes, sort of a re-imagining of Cheers without the constant one-liners and 'live studio audience'. But I've just watched the third episode and it's kind of tipped me over into recommending it, if for nothing more than I can't imagine any other TV show of any kind today doing the same thing.
Like later seasons of Louie, H&P is not entirely satisfying - not funny enough, not dramatic enough, not deep enough and at time amateurish and self-indulgent the way any student film would be, but with, as he put it himself, a 'hall of fame cast' and music by Paul Simon.
It's really the first genuine full-length TV show ever made entirely independently, completely outside of the TV networks, written, produced, financed and distributed by CK alone. If you want to know what TV made without advertisers and other financial considerations taken into consideration would look like, well here it is.
Like later seasons of Louie, H&P is not entirely satisfying - not funny enough, not dramatic enough, not deep enough and at time amateurish and self-indulgent the way any student film would be, but with, as he put it himself, a 'hall of fame cast' and music by Paul Simon.
It's really the first genuine full-length TV show ever made entirely independently, completely outside of the TV networks, written, produced, financed and distributed by CK alone. If you want to know what TV made without advertisers and other financial considerations taken into consideration would look like, well here it is.