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What’s the Story?

Reviewed by Elliot Panek

After winning the lottery, redneck bully and thief Earl (Jason Lee) suffers a series of unfortunate events. He loses his winning ticket, gets hit by a car, and his wife makes him sign divorce papers while he's in a full body cast. While watching TV, Earl sees Carson Daly, a philosophical genius, discussing karma and has an epiphany -- his bad luck could turn into good luck if he made amends with the people he hurt. So Earl creates a list of all the bad things he has done to others; each episode chronicles his attempt to cross one entry off the list by setting things right. In the process, he confronts his own biases, ending each episode with a heartwarming conclusion. Soon after this change, magically, the winning lottery ticket reappears and his luck immediately begins to change.

Is It Any Good?

3

Like so many recent TV comedies (the fast-paced, funny Scrubs comes to mind), MY NAME IS EARL does away with sitcom conventions like studio settings and canned laughter, providing a voice-over from the main character to guide the viewer. The humor is fairly broad -- some gross-out gags, a bit of slapstick violence, and plenty of jokes about how dumb some people can be. If anything sets this show apart, it's the premise, and Jason Lee's appealingly affable turn as the dumb-but-good-natured Earl.

While Earl may be a moral individual, the show possesses a very simple view of morality, preaching forgiveness while cutting through the sap with another politically incorrect joke. As long as the show can maintain its steady stream of laughs, it should prove worth watching for teens and their parents.

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