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How do you have a show called Eastbound & Down and you DON’T play the anthem for trucker trash culture? That’s a fail off the bat.

The second strike is all this hype about a baseball sitcom and then NO baseball. What is the deal with that?

The third strike was the writing which might have been on strike at the time. You are fucking out Eastbound & Down.

The good thing for you guys is that there are nine innings.

The truth about television show premieres is that they are often less hit and more miss. Home Box Office however has a ridiculous track record for their original programming so you can expect at minimum a certain level of entertainment. Where their series ‘Flight of the Conchords’ is smart, and unassuming in its wit, ‘Eastbound & Down’ is predictable with its punchlines. I’m not saying thats a bad thing at all, but HBO has spoiled us rotten with quirky, hilarious shit like LARRY DAVID’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. Its a little weird for me to find myself giving a shit about Kenny Powers who is the lead character in ‘Eastbound & Down’. CYE’s Larry made his selfishness and stupidity amusing. EB & D’s Kenny Powers is just grating.

The same people who brought us shit like ‘Talladega Nights’ and ‘Step Brothers’ along with the same actor who featured in ‘Tropic Thunder’ and ‘Pineapple Express’ have teamed up to give us nothing like the hot shit I just mentioned. Where ‘Eastbound & Down’ fails is that the writing seems to have been set up for a laugh track. Characters aren’t just one dimensional. Some are non-dimensional. And I can’t force myself to laugh at a holograph. The writers need to sit down and decide what they want to do with this character who is supposedly a former major league player of the highest caliber all the while being a cretin of the lowest possible moral fiber.

I’m not saying that it can’t work, but someone needs to come in and refine the show. DANNY McBRIDE is funny as the lead even though he is working with some cliche’d bits. The show should have dealt with his downward spiral from the majors. Kenny Powers should have been that guy that snorted cocaine off a stripper’s ass cheek. That is the outrageous the show needed as opposed to showing us a nude shot of McBride in the shower at the middle school his character is supposed to be teaching at. Nude shots and profanity are all golden when they are done right, but when they are done wrong, they are just gold-plated like the slum jewelry on Jamaica Avenue.

I’m going to give ‘Eastbound & Down’ at least one more shot because the creative team behind Funny Or Die has to still have some funny left inside of them. Also because my folks from Cornerstone Marketing make sure that I stay invited to shit that I love with no reservation. If ‘Eastbound & Down’ doesn’t make it to sweeps week (does cable even give a fuck about that shit?) don’t blame DP dot com. Blame the fact that JERRY REED’s theme song from ‘Smokey & The Bandit’ was nowhere to be heard.