The League of Gentlemen, Louie

I don't watch shows on USA because they all feel the same. Matt Bomer's White Collar character could walk onto the set of Covert Affairs or Burn Notice and nobody would, well, notice. That doesn't mean they're bad shows, I just think they're all the same tonally. I watched the last season of Monk, and I watch Psych periodically, but the lite-crime schtick gets old after a while.

I've found that I'm really attracted to shows that have unique tone, direction or cinematography that makes me sit up and think, "Hm, I haven't seen this before." Because honestly, all Sherlock Holmes-esque detective shows are going to feel like House, all mockumentary comedies are going to feel like The Office, all mystery/suspense shows are going to try to emulate LOST. Because if something is proven to work, it will be copied, at the expense of originality.

So when I watched Louie for the first time a couple weeks ago, I was smitten. It was the second episode, "Poker/Divorce," that did it -- the first scene of the episode lasts about five minutes. Louie and his comedian friends sit around a warmly-lit table and play poker. One of the comics is gay, and one of them is homophobic. The guys discuss the use of the word "faggot" in an open, humorous, yet extremely real, way. The atmosphere was something I'd never seen before on TV. "Real-life" sketches like this one, alternating with scenes from his stand-up (also acted) make up the 20-odd minute show. Another plus is the fantastic incidental music.

Similarly (yet somehow completely dissimilarly...), The League of Gentlemen caught my eye. It aired on BBC2 from 1999-2002*. I checked it out for Mark Gatiss, because I wanted to watch a few things the co-creators of Sherlock did pre-Doctor Who (I also watched a bit of Coupling -- not bad! But my disdain for laugh tracks stops me from watching much more). The town of Royston Vasey has perpetual zombie weather -- that is, overcast and foreboding and generally creepy. Dark humor, outlandish characters (many played by three of the show's four creators), and nightmarish situations all come together in this horror-movie town. It's incredibly well-written (all at once screamingly funny yet disturbing) and well-acted, but the selling point, for me at least, is the uniquely nightmarish atmosphere in every episode. Delightful.

* So far I've only watched series 3. I'll go back to 1 and 2 once I get over my laugh track aversion...