Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 7

With all due respect to Larry David, this seventh season of his brilliant HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm was one too many. Even though the show was seemingly resurrected last year through the introduction of the Black family (especially the free-flowing J.B. Smoove as cousin Leon, who matched the pugnacious Larry with his own inimitable take on social conventions) and the dissolution of his by-then tired marriage to Cheryl, the Blacks are out the door by the second episode. Instead, the season focuses on Larry’s attempts to win Cheryl back by producing a Seinfeld reunion special, the sort of self-referential, tail-eating satire that would work had David not already done it to death in earlier seasons. Smoove does stick around for a couple episodes, including an encounter with Michael Richards that is a wellspring of missed comedic and satiric opportunities.