NEW SHOW: "Eastbound & Down"

It's not that I can't see why some people would find HBO's "Eastbound & Down" hilarious. I totally can.

But...

There are a lot of North Carolina School of the Arts ties here: the star/writer Danny McBride, executive producers/writers Jody Hill and Ben Best and first episode director David Gordon Green. The group has worked together before, in various combinations, on films "All the Real Girls," "The Foot Fish Way," and "Pineapple Express."

Comic star Will Ferrell is also an executive producer.

McBride plays Kenny Powers, a big-league baseball pitcher with a Jheri curl mullet who was once so popular, even little kids repeated his profane catchphrase. But his pitching slows, and his John Rocker-like remarks, plus his drug use -- steroid and recreational -- send him down the ranks, until finally he ends up home in North Carolina working as a substitute gym teacher.

Kenny knows how far he's fallen but it doesn't make him humble; the man listens to his own lame-brained bio on tape for inspiration.

He moves in with his understanding and patient brother Dustin and his brother's less understanding and appalled wife Cassie, and aims to win back his old high school girlfriend April who is now engaged to the high school principal.

I think Cassie sums up Kenny's appeal best when she asks her husband this: "I know it's our Christian duty to do for family, but can't we just kill him?"

The writers, and McBride's performance, portray Kenny as a delusional fool who is often loathsome, and yet, who is also appealing in some ways, and that's not easy to do.

A part of me wants to watch all six episodes to see if the show grows on me.

But ugh. I'd just would have nothing to with a person like Kenny, and I'm pretty sure he'd have nothing to do with me.

Tune in on Sunday at 10:30pm

Other playdates:
Feb. 16@ 9pm
Feb. 17@ midnight
Feb. 19 @ 2am
Feb. 20 @ 12:05 am

HBO 2
Feb. 18 @11pm
Feb. 21 @ 1am