So I'm finally getting back to watching these. I quit watching them a couple of years ago, coincidentally, the episode right before his worthless cunt of a wife leaves him. Now I've restarted season 6, cuz, well the Blacks and all. Thankfully, it doesn't take long to get Susie involved. God damn I love that woman.
Here's where I have a big problem, though. Sometimes LD is a fantastic character. Sometimes he's an idiot and/or an asshole. I love this style of comedy, and farce in general, but it really only works if you like the character who causes all of the situations to begin with. Most of the time, Larry's a decent guy who, often through no fault of his own, winds up in bizarre situations that he's tragically ill-equipped to cope with. He's terrible at explaining things and he's an appallingly bad quick-thinker. This is hysterical. The problem is that occasionally he causes all of the problems himself by being a genuine jackass, and that really blows the comedy value to hell. They're still great enough writers to make the situations good (usually), but it really takes it from a great show to barely passable one when they go this route.
Consider the first two episodes of season 6. In Meet the Blacks, he attempts a ploy that's stupid from the get-go, and after it fails miserably for very obvious reasons, he attempts it again the next night. It's just not funny when he brings the failure on himself. The following week, all of the problems are caused by other people. Jeff jerks off on his blanket (and holy shit was that a great idea). Danson gossips and cheats with the anonymous donation. The well-stacked dry cleaner loses his jersey. He was the hapless victim in each of these situations, and naturally, he compounded them with hilarious results. Weak episode, great episode. It's a real shame they weren't more consistent. Next on the list is the roadside memorial, which was one of the episodes that really turned me off the show in a big way.