His roaring gusto and growling pain can be felt from across the screen, his whiskey-soaked cries professing a relatable, piercing vulnerability. Torn, always a memorable Larry Sanders player, is simply dazzling in his extended reaction to this betrayal, conveying all the degrees of Artie’s anguish with aplomb: rollicking drunkenness, tearful sadness, defiant rage, childlike impulsiveness, tender love for Larry. Background isn’t necessary to get what’s happening here: Artie capably makes his way through a deluge of absurd staff requests, a phone call from a greedy ex-wife, and other last-minute show disruptions-until Larry bumps Artie’s friend Ryan O’Neal (playing himself) from the schedule so that the always-horny host can keep flirting on screen with guest Sandra Bernhard (likewise playing herself), in a decision that Larry pins on Artie. Instead of exploring the broader machinations of the fictional late-night program hosted by Larry Sanders (the late, great Garry Shandling), this episode narrows in on that show’s tough-loving, wisecracking producer Arthur, played by Rip Torn. In that sense, The Larry Sanders Show’s “Arthur After Hours” is a universal story. We’ve all known what it’s like to be the exploited underling-the person busting their ass nonstop, taking the rap for things that aren’t their fault, professing resilience in the face of chaos, only to remain underrecognized and ill-appreciated for all that effort. It’s that the show insists on exploring the deeper questions behind its darkly comic premise, turning a simple sixth-season gag-fest into a moving (and still funny!) philosophical inquiry into why we laugh … even at the most inappropriate moments. It’s not just that the episode’s centerpiece-Mary, who’s scolded her co-workers for being insufficiently solemn at the death of a local children’s-show clown, absolutely loses it laughing during Chuckles’ funeral-is still screamingly funny. It’s not just the spiky yet affectionate relationships between its vivid characters-so archetypal, thanks to MTM’s influence, that you need no introduction to enjoy them. Yet the longer you stick with this all-time classic episode, the more modern it seems. Watching this 1975 episode of the original great workplace sitcom, you might focus at first on what feels so old-fashioned about it: the laugh track, the 50-year-old hairstyles, the opening credit sequence you’ve perhaps seen parodied more times than you’ve actually watched the show itself. Streaming on Paramount+, Amazon Freevee, and Pluto TV. And ultimately, Bemis’ tale offers a fantastically bleak object lesson of life in the Zone: It really, truly just isn’t fair. The episode features themes-social alienation, just deserts, a cruel yet pithy universe-that show up throughout the series. But then his sidelong glance at suicide is broken by something more attractive: a library! With unlimited borrowing privileges! I don’t want to spoil the final twist, but suffice to say, “Time Enough” is well worth a look if you haven’t seen it. At first, our sole survivor of the apocalypse isn’t quite sure that he wants to be alive. Nor does it value its own survival, for that matter, as Bemis realizes once an H-bomb interrupts his lunch break in the bank vault, silencing all those nattering chastisements for good. But his world, represented by a dummy boss and a contemptuous wife, is not one that values literature. As Rod Serling narrates in this stand-alone episode-the most exquisite that the classic anthology series has to offer-Henry Bemis, played by the singular Burgess Meredith, is “the small man in the glasses who wanted nothing but time”-time, specifically, to read.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |