Hung: The Complete First Season

Hung started about the same time as True Blood season two. After the second episode I was hooked! The main character is a high school history teacher and basketball coach whose house burns down, children want to live with his ex-wife and he's broke broke broke. He meets up with a poet who he once (ahem) and together they hatch a harebrained scheme to pimp him and his ... out. Through this he has to deal with women he isn't attracted to but learns to love what's under the skin, crazy women who pay for him but not his "services" and the working in's and out's of women. Meanwhile his pimp, Tanya, is suffering as a failed poet and drowning in her own lack of love in her life. Bumps and bruises along the way but every episode bring laughter and smiles to my face (and my husbands!).
The characters learn and even though they get a lot more bad than good cards, they always grow. I'm very pleased with the direction this new series is going and sit in anticipation every Sunday night when my little red dot that indicates my DVR is recording blinks on. Hung is a lot more than I had anticipated and am tickled with the gem found under dirty gym socks and a slathering of sexual innuendo.

I thought the first season of this show was ok but I think it needs a lot of fine tuning to survive. Primarily, I found my attention wandering because the show was meandering. There are a lot of characters. All of the characters seem uncertain about what they are doing. Because they lack focus and intent, the show lacks focus and intent. Thomas Jane, he who is "hung", sort of decides to become a prostitute to solve his money problems. He never really seems 100% committed to the proposition though. It's as if he's dabbling in it. His pimp, the woman poet, has the same problem. His ex-wife is also just a little bit more happily married to her 2nd husband than she was to him but her dedication to that marriage is also hanging by a thread. Their teen children are also aimless. It is thus not surprising that the show lacks Oomph and pizazz. Worst of all, I never felt like hiring Jane myself, never the faintest little jingle of charismatic attraction to him. Yes, he's very good looking but a man who wants to attract lot of women typically exudes a lot more than just good looks.

I think Jane needs to rev up the charm and allure and shed the soft beta male attitude that is his habitual mien. His pimp also has to either be someone else entirely or she has to become focused and intent on promoting him. She has to step up to the plate, not drift up to it. The gal muscling in on her territory is a lot more believable as a pimp than she is.

The ex-wife and the kids need to be pulled sharply into focus or go entirely out of focus. Right now they are just blobs on the canvas.

Most of all, the writers and overall creator of this show really need to get down to doing some heavy rewriting for season two, if there is to be a season two. I suspect it is their fault that this show is so unfocused. There is only so much actors can do when the script doesn't know where it is going.

If I compare this to another TV series premiere of the same season also by HBO, EASTBOUND AND DOWN, there is no comparison. That show nailed what it wanted to be and where it wanted to go right from the very first show. Then the show only grew in power. Focus never drifted far, if at all, from its main character played by Danny McBride.

Wasn't sure what to expect from this besides the obvious. It seemed in the beginning that there was a lot to balance between the facade of the student admired, all around good guy of Coach Ray Drecker and his cocky and at times infantile alter ego. Then you have hot mess, wanna be pimp Tonya who seems likes she's one bad hair day away from workplace homicide. But in the end, it all somehow works and entices you to want to watch more. (It doesn't hurt Thomas Jane isn't afraid to show his bum off alot!) It was HBO's most watched freshmen show ever so I hope that means a 2nd season and beyond will be secured because watching these characters come into their own will be entertaining!