HBO has begun developing the new hour-long series Laughs Unlimited—a show that is somehow not one of the network's many '80s-era stand-up cavalcades featuring Elayne Boosler, Fred Stoller, and myriad people in bloused-out rayon shirts, but something even less funny. The ironically titled drama comes from Rampart and The Messenger director Oren Moverman and Jarhead author Anthony Swofford, and is well within their brutal wheelhouses: It concerns "an Army medic who returns from serving a tour in Afghanistan only to find that her husband is divorcing her and taking custody of their daughter." If that sounds like only limited laughs, the show will also find her returning to the high-pressure world of being a beat cop, all the while fighting the post-traumatic stress disorder that "at any moment could jeopardize her career, family and life." Also, she and her fellow cops will "blow off steam" at the real-life Sacramento-area comedy club named Laughs Unlimited. So hey, maybe Elayne Boosler will turn up after all, and then some other horribly depressing shit will happen.
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