I’m sure you have looked back at your life and debated the choices you made to get you from point A to point B. You may ask yourself why you chose to take the now defunct MIDI music class your freshman year of college instead of the more logical and useful statistics class – clearly your life dream was to create ringtones for late 20^th century cell phones. Unfortunately, as we all know, we cannot turn back the clock hands and change our previous decisions. We can, however, try our best to move forward and either make do with our situations or take responsibility (and the reigns) of our futures.

Last night HBO premiered its newest replacement for the Sopranos – Hung – and let me tell you, if I judge this show solely on Thomas Jane’s strip tease credits, then this is a hit! But, I’m not judging it solely on that. Jane stars as Ray Decker, the typical down-on-his luck anti-hero. When Ray was in high school, he was a star, but twenty years later his star has not only fallen, it has sputtered and dulled. Now he’s divorced, middle-aged, and broke – a winning combination. After attending a get-rich-quick seminar, Ray discovers that his only sellable asset is his really large penis; a reality that Ray slowly learns to accept throughout the pilot episode.

Now I know you’re saying to yourself: “how is that troubling?” or “why is Ray so upset about it? If I had a huge penis I would sell it too!” Well, obviously you 1) don’t have a large penis and therefore don’t know that 2) big penis hurt like a mother, unless of course the girl has a vagina as wide as a wizard’s sleeve, then I’m sure it must feel quite nice. But, let’s face it, most of the time it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Enter Tanya Skagle, played with such a quiet potential for crazy by Jane Adams. Ray knows Tanya previously from a one night stand and after an awesome screaming match where Ray tells Tanya that she comes too much and if she wanted to be taken seriously she “shouldn’t just hop into bed with every guy” the two part on bad terms. Yeah, Ray is THAT GUY. Thank god Tanya was slutty enough to stand up for herself and tell him to fuck off. Eventually, however, Ray shows a little bit of kindness towards Tanya and her Lyrical Bread baking company idea, and in return, she offers her services as his pimp for his new venture. Let the magnum condoms and super lube jokes begin!

I can tell you now that I already dislike Ray, but that is typical of HBO to make heroes out of less than likeable people. He seems arrogant and blames everyone else for his problems, and honestly, when I watch TV I don’t want to see people I actually know. I want to escape and I want to laugh, and thankfully I do see potential for hilarity in the show. I just hope the next few episodes have a touch more levity than the pilot; otherwise I will have to stop myself from asking for my time back.