It’s hard to imagine Maron existing in a world without Louie. Louie is a good show and an Important show (the capital I was on purpose) but until now has yet to be an influential show, at least in terms of its direct impact on other television programs. Maron is the first sign of a television world that comes after Louie.
There’s plenty admirable about imitating what Louie does, but it’s dangerous as well. It’s hard to pull off Louie’s combination of ludicrous and poignant as well as his ability to switch on a dime from comedic to serious and back again.
It’s tough to live in a post-Louie world because sometimes it feels like instead of relaxing watching a television show and just looking to laugh like when watching a New Girl or a Bob’s Burgers, I have to scrutinize every little exchange between Maron and each other character for meaning. Honestly, I’m probably thinking a little bit too hard, but this is what happens when I spent a full season trying to figure out what Louie was about, and now I’m trying to bring that thought process to bear here.
You’re probably not going to laugh a whole lot. Shows in a post-Louie world by comedians aren’t necessarily designed that way. It’s as if the comedian has a higher calling, and to some extent, I think it’s admirable not to just be boxed in a corner as funny, even though funny is not inherently a bad place to be. There’s a couple of solid quips, but there aren’t very many jokes or real laugh lines, certainly not like you’d find in clear comedies like Parks and Recreation or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Marc Maron’s a little bit edgier than Louie. He’s less awkward than Louie but more narcissistic. Louie wants to be liked, but Maron needs to be. Louie tries desperately to be nice, while Maron has no problem being mean and combative. Instead of daughters, Maron has cats. If Louie is the everyman, Maron plays the id, the man running around with a little less control over himself. An early scene has Maron run into his ex-wife in a coffee shop with his sick cat. He previously had made a point about how he wouldn’t know what to do if he ran into his ex-wife. He acts like a dick when he does, being needlessly hostile to her years after their relationship ended. If Maron needs to be liked, he’s also kind of a jerk, and the show seems to be dealing a lot with that central contradiction. He addresses this straight on at the end of the pilot when he mentions that he’s okay with the world thinking whatever they want about him, even though we know the opposite is true.
The show is hooked around the most successful thing Marc Maron’s ever done, which is his WTF podcast, which he records out of his LA garage (it’s smart to set his show across the country from Louie’s NYC). In this first episode, Dave Foley is over to record a show with Marc, and Marc does a couple of a little segments with Foley, as if recording them for his show.
In this episode, Maron and Foley drive over to a comic book store where a guy who has been bashing Maron on Twitter is playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons. This plot feeds directly into Maron’s needing to be liked, and his reckoning with modern technology, as he must know why this random dude doesn’t like him and insists on shouting it to the world.
Maron, the show, ventures into very dangerous ground by presenting these extremely nerdy looking guys dressed in costumes playing a campaign. Maron does try to not play it straight, and at least kind of flips the situation on its head by having Maron, the person, come out as the bad guy rather than the nerds. He’s the one who had to find them in person, and they love Dave Foley who defends them later. Still even acknowledging the existence of nerds so extreme, strikes a couple of boxes on my Nerd Defamation League checklist. The primary nerd character is portrayed by Erik Charles Nielson, who plays ubernerd Garrett on Community. If they didn’t want to drive that point home about how stereotypically nerdy this character was, they could have cast someone else.
I reasonable enjoyed watching the show, but I hardly felt compelled to watch another episode. I didn’t particularly care for the character of Marc Maron, and I’m not sure whether that is how I’m supposed to feel or not. I think a show like this can both take more than one episode to really get into, and very likely may need a few episodes to really get running at maximum capacity. Thus, I’ll try to at least check it out down the line. But the way it is right now, I could imagine watching, but probably won’t go out of my way for. It has a little bit of a lot of qualities, but no one aspect really made a strong enough impression to make me immediately want to come back.
Will I watch it again? Honestly, I doubt I’ll watch every episode of Maron, at least anytime soon. Since it appears like it will be fairly episodic, there’s a fair chance I’ll catch another episode, and I can imagine marathoning it one day down the line over a couple of days. It doesn’t really capture me, though to be fair, the first Louie didn’t either, and I now greatly enjoy that show, even if I still don’t think it’s necessarily the best on TV.
Television, the Drug of the Nation 
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