#Matthew banks comedy series#

They're just another working-class TV family, and if the same characters appeared on a network series they'd be definitively unoriginal. Kim is a nurse who suffers Louie's quirks Louie is a James Belushi type with a part-time job at a muffler shop and buddies with whom he can complain about women and they have one adorable preteen daughter. Next week, the series becomes even more unreserved, as the couple make love during a scene - while exchanging quips, naturally.

In tonight's episode, for instance, Kim (Pamela Adlon) catches her chunky lug of a husband Louie pleasuring himself in a closet. It's the antithesis of the more sophisticated TV comedy that HBO has championed, from ``The Larry Sanders Show' to ``Sex and the City.' But while ``Lucky Louie' mimics old-school sitcoms such as ``The Honeymooners,' ``Roseanne,' and ``The King of Queens,' it's also frankly sexual. ``Lucky Louie' is HBO's first-ever conventional multi-camera sitcom, complete with live audience laughter and a fake-looking set. Often, shock depends on the forbidden for its ballast. When you can swear like a sailor and simulate love making openly in an old-fashioned sitcom, as the actors do on ``Lucky Louie,' you don't generate much excitement or outrageousness. It's actually a failed experiment in TV genre, and a reminder of the power of the unspoken and the unseen in entertainment. His explicit sitcom, ``Lucky Louie,' premieres in the 10:30 slot, and it's one of HBO's more fascinating series - but not because it's good, or funny. Seriously, you wouldn't want to do laundry for the HBO men, who now include the comedian Louis C.K., a one-time Boston boy. Look for the good (``Entourage'), the bad (``Dane Cook's Tourgasm'), and the ugly (``Lucky Louie'), all airing right after the return of HBO's most brilliantly artful of stinky sinkholes, David Milch's ``Deadwood.'

on HBO's most valuable night, you'll find a sort of Howard Stern - flavored sundae with Vince Vaughn sprinkles on top. With Tony Soprano and his crew weakening and then departing in 2007, HBO is declaring a new demographic war on young men. Sure, these men bust each other plenty, but they always hug it out - with conspicuous non sexual back pats, of course. Call it ``guys' night in.' On Sunday, HBO begins a new programming lineup featuring a bunch of porn-using, attention-loving, curse-inventing, beer-belly-bearing dudes.

Matthew banks comedy