---
title: "Bored to Death"
year: 2009
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/bored-to-death"
fi1m_score: 50
critics_score: 36
critics_reviews: 6
published: "2026-09-17T01:17:49.023424+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T01:18:02.965550+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Bored to Death (2009)

Created by Jonathan Ames · 30m · MPA TV-MA · Comedy, Crime, Mystery, Drama

**Fi1m score: 50** · Critics 36 from 6 reviews

*In a sentence:* Ted Danson wanders through a noir that cannot be bothered to solve anything, and steals it without trying

> Jonathan Ames’s Brooklyn noir spoof has a fine idea, a likeable cast and almost no appetite for telling a story. Ted Danson is worth it on his own; the rest drifts, pleasantly, across three seasons and arrives nowhere in particular.

## Synopsis

Brooklyn, 2009. Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) is a novelist with a second book he cannot write, a taste for white wine and marijuana, and a girlfriend, Leah (Heather Burns), who has had enough of all three and moves out. Left alone in the flat, he posts an advertisement online offering himself as a private detective, unlicensed and untrained. His first client rings the same day. Between jobs he drinks with his friend Ray Hueston (Zach Galifianakis), a comic-book artist with a long list of grievances, and with George Christopher (Ted Danson), the editor of the glossy magazine Jonathan writes for, who smokes a great deal and treats Jonathan’s new career as the most interesting thing to have happened to him in years.

## Review

Jonathan Ames is a novelist who has created a television series about a Brooklyn novelist called Jonathan Ames, played by Jason Schwartzman, and that tells you most of what you need to know about the tone. In the first episode Jonathan’s girlfriend Leah (Heather Burns) packs her things and leaves, citing the white wine and the marijuana. Jonathan, who has a second novel he cannot write, posts an advertisement online offering his services as a private detective. He has no licence and no experience, and the first client calls that afternoon. It is a good idea for a half-hour comedy, and over three seasons of eight episodes the show never works out what to do with it. That is the verdict; the rest is why.

The cases are small on purpose. Somebody has lost a person or an object, Jonathan takes the job for a few hundred dollars, and the matter is resolved offhandedly, usually by accident and often by somebody else. Twice in the first season we realised we had stopped following who had done what, then realised the writers had stopped too, and nobody seemed to mind. That is either a relaxed pleasure or a failure of nerve, depending on how badly you wanted a detective story. We wanted one a little more than the show did.

Schwartzman plays Jonathan as a man permanently about to apologise, hands in his coat pockets, voice pitched somewhere between a question and a sigh. It is a controlled performance and a mannered one, and several critics found it insufferable. We did not, quite, but it is a lot of one note over twenty-four episodes. He is best when frightened, which is often, since the show enjoys putting him in rooms with people who might hit him. His fear is funnier than his charm.

Ted Danson is the reason to keep watching. George Christopher edits a glossy magazine, is rich and vain, is stoned for most of the working day and believes that everything that happens to him is interesting. Danson plays him as a man who has never been told no and has decided to be gracious about it. We laughed out loud at him more than at anything else in the series, mostly at small things: the way he receives bad news as though it were a compliment, or explains his own feelings to Jonathan as if reporting on a stranger. Zach Galifianakis, as Jonathan’s friend Ray Hueston, a comic-book artist with a long list of grievances and a short fuse, gives the show its only real sadness. The scenes in which the three men eat or drink together and solve nothing are the ones that work.

Eight directors are credited across the run, Adam Bernstein, Michael Lehmann, Alan Taylor, Nicole Holofcener and Paul Feig among them, and the look barely changes from one to the next: Brooklyn stoops, bars in the afternoon, George’s office with the skyline behind it, all lit evenly and flatly, as though nobody had been told this was meant to be a noir. For a series whose own tagline calls it ‘a noir-rotic comedy’, it is oddly short of shadows. The writers, Ames alongside Martin Gero, Rachel Axler, Mike Schwartz, Sam Sklaver and Donick Cary, have a good ear for the way these three men talk to each other and much less interest in the way anyone else does.

The guest list is a Brooklyn address book. Jim Jarmusch and Kevin Bacon appear as themselves, Parker Posey turns up as Michelle Whiting, Zoe Kazan as Nina. Each arrival is pleasant and each is a reminder of how little the plots matter to anyone involved. This is where the preciousness the reviews complained about actually lives: not in Schwartzman, but in the fact that everyone Jonathan meets is a writer, an editor, or a friend of one.

Most critics were colder than we are. The reviews found it precious and unfunny, and on the first charge they have a point. On the second we disagree: it is funny, in a low, ambling way, about once every ten minutes, and Danson accounts for most of those. It carries a 15 certificate for the sex and the drugs, both of which are treated as ordinary. Watch it late, one episode at a time, with the wine Leah objected to, and do not expect to find out who did it.

*Fi1m score 50, published 17 September 2026.*

### Reviews we read (6)

- **The Guardian** (50/100, inferred): Bored to Death might not be great TV overall. Ted Danson stands out as an egocentric man-child George, while the pilot feels inert and affectless despite strong performances and stylish New York settings. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/29/cable-girl-bored-to-death)
- **The AV Club**, Steve Heisler (D+): The critic finds the HBO series a disappointment despite its promising cast and premise, criticizing its lack of direction, visual style, and narrative coherence in the pilot episode. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/bored-to-death-stockholm-syndrome-1798207001)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Barry Garron (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the humor too subdued and the stories unsurprising, making the series less compelling than its premise and cast suggest, though the performances of Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis provide some highlights. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/bored-death-tv-review-93533/)
- **Empire**, William Thomas (35/100, inferred): Bored To Death is overly mannered, exhaustingly zany and not very funny, with an appealing trio of leads let down by the material. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/bored-death-review/)
- **Variety**, Brian Lowry (30/100, inferred): The series is deemed too precious and quirky for its own good, with an uneven tone and mannered lead performance that fails to deliver consistent rewards despite some potential in the supporting cast. [Read](https://variety.com/2009/scene/markets-festivals/bored-to-death-1200476082/)
- **The Telegraph**, Rachel Ray (20/100, inferred): The show lives up to its unfortunate name and fails as a sitcom. Jason Schwartzman plays a struggling writer imitating a Woody Allen type, with the premise and execution coming across as boring and unconvincing. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6214704/Bored-to-Death-HBO-review.html)

## Details

- **Created by:** Jonathan Ames
- **Creator:** Jonathan Ames
- **Director:** Michael Lehmann, Adam Bernstein, Alan Taylor, Tristram Shapeero, Paul Feig, Troy Miller, Nicole Holofcener, Tucker Gates
- **Writer:** Martin Gero, Donick Cary, Jonathan Ames, Sam Sklaver, Mike Schwartz, Rachel Axler
- **Producer:** Troy Miller
- **Cast:** Jason Schwartzman as Jonathan Ames; Zach Galifianakis as Ray Hueston; Ted Danson as George Christopher; Heather Burns as Leah; Jim Jarmusch as Self; Parker Posey as Michelle Whiting; Kevin Bacon as Himself; Amy Spanger as Kitty
- **Runtime:** 30m
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 20 September 2009
- **Genres:** Comedy, Crime, Mystery, Drama
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er88JTcdy4E

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, LT, MX, MY, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *The Long Goodbye* (1973), Fi1m 86: Elliott Gould’s shambling Marlowe is the detective Jonathan Ames wishes he were. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-long-goodbye.md)
- *The Big Lebowski* (1998), Fi1m 85: A stoned amateur stumbles into a case and out again; the obvious model. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-big-lebowski.md)
- *Flight of the Conchords* (2007), Fi1m 84: Two hapless men in New York, half-hour episodes, jokes that arrive sideways. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/flight-of-the-conchords.md)
- *Search Party* (2016): Brooklyn amateurs investigate a disappearance and find their own vanity instead.
- *Manhattan Murder Mystery* (1993): Neurotic New Yorkers play detective; Diane Keaton has more nerve than anyone here.

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© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/bored-to-death