I’ve seen the first two episodes of Lucky Louie, which is HBO’s new four-camera sitcom. The four-camera sitcom, with live studio audience, is the traditional standard: like Seinfeld, or Raising Dad. The other kind is the one-camera, which tends to be more dynamic, less like a play - Malcom In The Middle is the best known of its type.

The show is based around Louis C.K. and the trials of married life. (Interesting note: Although he looks like a ginger kid, he’s Mexican-Hungarian-Irish and Spanish was his first language.) Much has been made of the vulgarity - Lucky Louie is shot in the same way as I Love Lucy, but the characters curse and carry on (the second episode provides us with a glimpse of cock). It’s HBO! Anything can happen! And it’s shocking, for sure, at first. But: it’s not like Married With Children, “only rawer.” It’s not in any way a parody of the form. No, Lucky Louie is one of the few sitcoms I’ve ever seen that accurately reflects human behavior and concerns. Louie’s wife tells him she wants to have more sex, and he joyfully cleans up the breakfast leavings. “You’re cleaning!” she says. He puts the trash can under the sink as she exits and says “I’ll clean anything for a blowjob once in awhile” under his breath and it’s FUNNY. But not because it’s mean, because it’s true, and Louie would and does say those kinds of things to his wife’s face, and she doesn’t get riled up because she’s kind of a realistic tough broad herself.

This is not to say it’s a great show: it’s not, yet. Two episodes in, it’s kind of listless and sex-obsessed. But the cast is great, and there’s unlimited potential for it to improve. I actually think it’s a lot like Straight Outta Compton: there were a lot of great rappers working in 1988, but NWA leveled them with emotional reality, and that’s what I think of Lucky Louie in relation to Scrubs or The New Adventures of Old Christine or whatever other technically competent sitcoms are on television right now.