Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season Seven
1/30/10 to 2/6/10
Is there such thing as post-meta yet? I’m not sure what that would mean—maybe just a rejection of all things meta, a return to the self-oblivious storyteller. Or maybe it’s when an already meta work takes on another level of self-awareness, therein negating the original meta-ness and creating something more “real” than if the creator had created the work outright. Maybe we should just call it “The CYE Season Seven Effect.”
In creating a Seinfeld reunion within the framework of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David delivers the ultimate payoff for fans of both shows, and without compromising the artistic integrity of either. It’s an astounding feat, considering the legacy of both shows involved, and the amount at stake if any small part fails.
Luckily, the execution of the show-within-a-show is impeccable, and mostly without any camera-winking and inside jokes usually associated with this type of meta-storytelling. It manages to be one of the funnier seasons of Curb in my memory: Though slow to start, it really picks up steam when Larry begins his quest to reunite with Cheryl. Putting the characters in such a wide variety of new situations really jump-started the comedy that was getting a bit stale in prior seasons.
Aside from one weak episode toward the end of its run, this season of Curb delivered in many ways, both direct and indirect. If you’ve given up on the show, I recommend picking it back up, if only for this season—especially if you were a Seinfeld fan.
