Lucky Louie
Premise: Roseanne, but starring a low-key blue-collar guy instead of a shrewish blue-collar gal.
Lucky Louie, an HBO sitcom starring the oddly named comic Louis C.K., lets you know what it's all about in the beginning of the first episode, when Louie's daughter, Lucy, plays the "why" game, a game my sister used to torture me with in which every answer leads to another question.
Lucy starts with generic kid questions, "Why is the sky blue?" and “Why do we eat cereal for breakfast?" As she keeps asking why with each answer, Louis' replies become more introspective. He begins to tell his ten-year-old kid that he failed to achieve a better life because he did too many drugs in college. It's a very human, real scene, and also quite funny. At its best, this is what Lucky Louie gives you.
Louis is a screw up but he knows he is and feels guilty about it. But not guilty enough to stop being a screw up: that's what makes him just like us. His wife Kim (played by Pamela Adlon, who also does the voice of Bobby on King of the Hill) functions both as Louis' emotional support and inquisitor, keeping things together, but constantly berating Louie for his shortcomings. Adlon is terrific, funny, and, like Louie, very human.
The standout of the show is Kelly Gould as the mercurial Lucy who will run out to Kim to excitedly show her something and then, when Louis enthusiastically asks to see it, rage, "I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to mom!" Children are, by objective standards insane, but also cute, and Lucy effortlessly shifts from one pole to the other.
The rest of the cast varies. Kim has a mooching, half-witted brother who seems to be the show's attempt to create a Kramer. Louis has a co-worker who is rather like that sleazy guy who was on Becker and they seem to be on a different, wackier show than the one the nuclear family inhabits.
Louis' boss and his wife are pretty good in the middle ground, but the family across the hall is the only other one who completely avoids the cartooniness of the show's bit players.
Lucky Louie focuses primarily on two things: child raising and sex (my understanding is the latter leads to the former which leads to the end of the latter). Some of the sex stuff seems designed to make the show edgy enough for HBO (as do stunts like having one of the minor male characters appear completely naked with everything showing), but even then it tends to feel pretty honest and it's nice to see a show that has a semi-adult attitude towards masturbation.
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