Bored to Death The Complete First Season   Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis, Ted Danson and Heather Burns HBO Home Entertainment RRP: £24.99 1000171884 Certificate: 15 Available 20 June 2011

Jonathan Ames, having lost the girl and finding it increasingly difficult to make it as a writer, takes a leaf out of his heroes book Raymond Chandler, and posts himself on Craigslist as a private detective. Oblivious to his lack of experience, or even basic skills in his new chosen profession, Ames nevertheless, takes on cases and more surprisingly solves them...

Bored to Death is an eight-part HBO comedy series. Written by Jonathan Ames the show has been a success for both Ames and a scene stealing opportunity for Ted Danson as George Christopher, Ames’s boss, confidant and editor of Edition, a fictional New York publication.

Like most comedies, the test of whether you think it’s funny depends on how much you buy into the central character. Ames (the fictitious character) played by Jason Schwartzman is quirky, more than a little insecure, especially following the departure of his girlfriend, Suzanne. These are some of his more endearing qualities as he is also, much of the time, full of existential angst, when he is not smoking too much dope and behaving like an over aged slacker.

Ted Danson as a rich, but no more less damaged, individual has already fried too many of his brain cells, even his position in life and great wealth cannot stop him offering Ames advice that sounds like it comes out of the Louis Carroll book of nonsense.

The triumvirate is completed by Ames's perennial mentally stunted friend Zach Galifianakis, who prefers to live the rest of his life through comic books.

The first season has been released on two DVDs. Now I didn’t get a PR sheet and the shows came burned to a couple of DVD, not the finished product. As it stands the extras consist of Making of Bored to Death (19 min, 58 sec) which has the usual talking heads from the show telling what a wonderful show it is.

Jonathan Ames Brooklyn (12 min 32 sec) has the star and writer of the show taking you around locations, talking about how they changed the geography to fit the show. There are a number of deleted scenes, on both disc, but the real prizes are the commentaries for episode one, three, six and eight with the writer and stars of the show. Not too bad for a show of only eight episodes.

The success of the show led to a second series and HBO have green lighted a third. In the end, the show comes over as an intelligently written comedy, worth watching for Danson’s performance alone.

8

Charles Packer