Search - Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Third Season on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 11/18/2023...

Dry and brief humor, crude at times brought to you from the Seinfeld creator, Larry David. Not worthy of a rewatch and barely worth watching.

The difinative season of Curb Your Enthusiasm

Dr. Maureen George | Elkins Park, PA United States | 06/05/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Curb Your Enthusiasm
-Season three episode guide:301- Chet's Shirt (9/15/02)302- The Benadryl Brownie (9/22/02)303- Club Soda and Salt (9/27/02)304- The Nanny (10/6/02)305- The Terrorist Attack (10/13/02)306- The Special Section (10/20/02)307- The Corpse-Sniffing Dog (10/27/02)308- Crazy-Eyez Killah (11/3/02)309- Mary, Joseph, and Larry (11/10/02)310- The Grand Opening (11/17/02)The first season of Curb Lacks the kind of overall plot connecting the episodes that the most recent three seasons have had. The second season steered Curb in a very "Seinfeld" direction as Larry begins to pitch a TV series (Starring, initially, Jason Alexander, and later Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to several networks, very similar to Seinfeld's fourth season. Finally, it seems, Curb Your Enthusiasm "found itself", so to speak, with its third season. The third season's plot finds Larry investing in a resturaunt along with several other celebrities. So finally, after a hectic albeit funny first and second season, the show settled down and focused on connecting and inter-weaving the episodes in really interesting and unique ways while still leaving each open-ended enough to be enjoyed alone. The time Curb saved slimming down non-plot-essential information went into a good deal of critically needed character development. Remarkably, the deepest character in the first two seasons is Larry's manager, Jeff. Luckily, Larry and Cheryl are at the core of almost every aspect of the third season. Their family lives are fleshed-out in much greater detail, making both seem infinitely more human. And this character-development allowed Curb Your Enthusiasm, in my opinion, to become truly great. -Colin George"

Basil meets George

My Uncle Stu | Boston | 11/09/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I like this show, I recommend the DVD, but can we please be honest about what it is, and why it is good when it is good? The show is marketed as "flinchingly realistic." It says that on the box, and that seems to be the perception, uncritically repeated in everything written about the show. We are supposed to believe that it is a realistical show because people play themselves and the scenes are adlibbed. But the subplots of the shows are actually very contrived, woven together very formulaically, and all require an astronomical series of coincidences to make them all pull together in each shows finale. The shows remind me more of Fawlty Towers than of Seinfeld, in that each show consists of Larry David reacting to things the way we'd all like to react if we had no frontal lobes, and by the end of the show everyone is angry at the protagonist whether he is trying to do good or harm. There are moments that feel very realistic, and are very entertaining, like Larry David and Richard Lewis adlibbing with each, which Richard Lewis in one of the DVD extras reports is a very authentic and surreal experience. Most of the scenes though, in the service of the plot machinations, require the characters to quickly get infuriated with each other. If it is "flinchingly realistic" at all, it is realistic in the sense of portraying honest human interactions minus the superego. And that is when it's funny. For example, when Larry David's manager's wife asks him if he would like a tour of their new house, and he says no. And Larry David's reaction to having his in-laws decorate a Christmas tree in his house.



It's a good show, this is a good season, go out and buy this DVD set. Each episode is good for at least a few very hearty laughs. When it's good, it's good in the way the best moments of Seinfeld and Fawlty Towers are good. It can also be over-the-top farcical in the way that the later, and weaker, seasons of Seinfeld were, when it became less focused on clever observations of human interactions and more an exercise in outrageous, cartoonishly broad comedy. Which is fine, if that is what cracks you up, but don't then claim it is uniquely distinguished by its realism. Anyway, this is my hang-up. I get very distracted by shows in which the characters don't act the way people actually act. In the case of this show, there is the extra layer to it, in which somehow everyone has become convinced that it is a realistic show. Judging by what people seem to like, I don't think most people are bothered by this, so thank you for listening, and take care.

"

The Funniest Show on Television

S. Winner | Iraq | 05/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I bought Curb Your Enthusiasm with one real expections. I am a marine in Iraq and I happen to see it at the local px. I am so glad that I bought it. Everything that happens in the show is hilarious. You find something funny or different every time you watch it, definately an adult comedy. I find myself watching over and over again, not due to a lack of DVD's I might add (we have plenty). It is like the Seinfeld that you always wanted, but couldn't play on basic television. You wil either love this show, or not get it at all, if you do get it, it's a homerun."