Louie

Though the Seinfeld gang led pathetic and shallow lives, they could always turn to each other for camaraderie-- even at the end in their jail cell-- and Larry David's misadventures in Curb Your Enthusiasm are even more awkward and painful, but at the end of the day, Larry still has Cheryl and Jeff by his side (until Cheryl leaves him) but in Louis C.K.'s hysterically funny and sincerely sad and depressing FX comedy Louie, Louie has no one except his young daughters-- and they tend to add to his anxiety rather than assuage it-- and aside from them, there are no other recurring characters that appear in every episode . . . Louie faces his depression alone, whether it be during the opening theme when he joylessly inhales a slice of pizza; or on stage doing his stand-up, which seems to be the only happy time in his life; or on his various adventures in New York . . . and he is doing the show on the cheap, so FX has given him carte blanche to do what he wants, so the show goes from clever to bawdy to surreal, often in one twenty minute episode: ten gallons of ice cream out of ten.