The Larry Sanders Show Review

The formal trick is elegant and everything follows from it: the talk show segments are shot on video like the real thing, and the backstage material is shot on film, so the audience feels the switch between performance and person in their eyes before they notice it in the writing. What happens behind the curtain is a study in status anxiety, in which a host who needs constant reassurance, a producer who is monstrous and desperate to be liked, and a sidekick who despises his own catchphrase circle each other for six seasons.

Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor are both perfect. The guests play versions of themselves, years before that became a standard move, and are frequently willing to look terrible. Its influence is impossible to overstate. The limitations are of its era. The video sections look dated, the industry references require some patience from a modern viewer, and a few storylines about the network's business have lost their charge. The final episode is one of the best in television.