Having shored up its potential Sex And The City clones, HBO has moved on to developing another unlikely niche—that of the overeducated, underemployed white male whose erudite, impractical skill set is the millstone that sinks him into a morass of quirky odd jobs. Granted, so far that subgenre only really includes Bored To Death, but now that show has a spiritual partner in People City, a new comedy being developed by Sam Lipsyte, a fellow chronicler of the smarty-pants disenfranchised. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lipsyte is working on an original idea about a 25-year-old man hired as the caretaker to the kids of an “eccentric couple,” which sounds right inside the wheelhouse of the guy who wrote about a failed painter slumming it in a college administration office in The Ask. And in accordance with all HBO bylaws, the show will be set in New York, so maybe the characters in People City, Bored To Death, and Jennifer Egan’s recently picked-up A Visit From The Goon Squad can have a crossover-event Central Park playdate.
Join the discussion...