Bored to Death (HBO)

Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) is stuck. He can’t write his second novel, he can’t cut back on his drinking habit (white wine, preferably), and he’s in a serious funk because his girlfriend just moved out. Looking for a way to curb his ennui and jump-start his creativity, he starts advertising himself as a private detective (an “unlicensed” one, just to make sure everything is above board). For moral support, he turns to his narcissistic best friends, Ray (Zach Galifianakis), a comic book artist who constantly whines about his sex life, and George (Ted Danson), a dashing magazine editor who really, really likes to smoke pot.

The joke in BORED TO DEATH is that Jonathan is hardly what you'd expect in a private eye -- short, nebbishy, and physically unimposing, he’s easy to overlook and hard to take seriously. The cases he lands in this offbeat comedy are standard fare -- a missing sister, a possibly cheating boyfriend -- but its Schwartzman’s efforts to insert himself into one weird situation after another that make it work. It’s not so much that his investigations lead him to strange places; it’s his attempts to be not so dorky that are priceless. He’s read plenty of Raymond Chandler, so he knows the moves, but that doesn’t mean that he can pull them off (just watch him try to bribe a bartender while choking on a whiskey, for example).

Danson and Galifianakis are ideal companions for a show about people trying to reinvent themselves -- though perhaps not the best of friends. Both are completely self-obsessed and seem oblivious to Jonathan's new identity. Danson’s George is particularly entertaining in his single-minded devotion to getting high and meeting women, probably in that order. But this show is all Schwartzman, and his meek wannabe detective is a worthy addition to the pantheon of TV gumshoes.