Last season, with the separated Larry trying to reunite with wife Cheryl and the much-anticipated Seinfeld reunion, was a great one. And now Curb Your Enthusiasm fans can get excited about today’s news from HBO: The network has decided that an eighth season of Larry David’s hilarious sitcom is a pretty, pretty, pretty good idea.

David and company will begin production this summer on another 10 episodes of the Emmy-winning show, with season eight to hit HBO in 2011.

Any plotline or character wishes for the new season? Do you want to see Larry and Cheryl reunited, or still separated? Which characters do you want to see more, or less, of? I’m hoping J.B. Smoove returns as Leon, whose interactions with Larry are raunchy, ridiculous and so, so funny.

Below, HBO’s official press release on the renewal:

For Immediate Release

HBO RENEWS HIT COMEDY SERIES CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM,
STARRING LARRY DAVID, FOR EIGHTH SEASON

LOS ANGELES, April 20, 2010 – HBO has renewed the hit comedy series CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, starring Larry David, for a ten-episode eighth season, it was announced today by Michael Lombardo, president, Programming Group and West Coast Operations, HBO. Production of the new episodes will begin this summer in Los Angeles and New York, with debut slated for 2011.

Said Lombardo, “Larry always loves to paint himself into a corner, and after the incredibly wonderful seventh season of CURB, you have to ask, ‘How does he ever top this?’ But he always finds a way. We can’t wait to see what he does in season eight.”

“After much soul searching – and by the way, it was nowhere to be found – I have decided to do another season of CURB,” says Larry David. “I look forward to the end of shooting, when I can once again resume the hunt for my elusive soul. I know it’s here somewhere or perhaps in the rugged mountainous regions of Pakistan.”

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM stars “Seinfeld” co-creator David as an over-the-top version of himself in an unsparing but tongue-in-cheek depiction of his life. The series also stars Cheryl Hines as David’s wife Cheryl, Jeff Garlin as David’s manager Jeff and Susie Essman as Jeff’s wife Susie.

Concluding its seventh season last November, with 70 episodes to date, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM is HBO’s longest-running scripted comedy or drama series. Season seven inspired critical raves, with the Washington Post calling the show “side-splitting,” and hailing David as “the best thing to happen to TV comedy,” while Newsday declared, “Larry David is a comic genius,” and the Boston Globe described the series as “the funniest show on television.”

Season seven credits: CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM is executive produced by Larry David, Jeff Garlin, Gavin Polone, Alec Berg, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer, Tim Gibbons and Erin O’Malley.

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I’m not one of those Seinfeld series finale haters – upon several re-viewings, I’ve come to appreciate it for really sticking to the show’s “no lessons” philosophy and the chance to see all the crazy supporting characters/actors and actresses we loved along the way.

Still, I’ve also been hoping for a Seinfeld reunion pretty much since the week after the show aired its series finale in May 1998, and though it seems unlikely that we’ll actually get a true, full-on Seinfeld reunion now, the Sein reunion storyline that unfolded throughout the seventh season of Curb Your Enthusiasm has been very satisfying.

And last night’s Curb season finale, the second part of a two-week episode that showed the Seinfeld reunion episode, reunited Jerry, Kramer, George and Elaine as well as Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and made me very nostalgic for the show with the repeated use of the Seinfeld sets, was truly a great capper to what I consider to be, far and away, the best-ever season of Curb.

The highlights (yes, spoilers ahead):

- In a giggle-inducing nod to Larry David’s trademark quizzical look when he thinks someone is lying to him, he and Jerry had a quizzical look-off when Jerry was trying to suss out why Larry was wigging out on the reunion set

- The reason Larry was wigging out on the reunion set: He suspected that estranged wife Cheryl, who was playing the part of the estranged wife of George Costanza (who, of course, is based on real-life Larry David), was falling for Alexander because he is so much like Larry

- A seemingly harmless request of Mocha Joe, the studio lot coffee cart guy, to carry a set of jumper cables to his office – and Larry’s neglect to tip Mocha Joe (who, hilariously, no one ever called “Joe” … always “Mocha Joe”) – led to a) Larry missing an opportunity to spend time with Cheryl (another example of him repeatedly being hoisted by his own petard, as he pointed out earlier in the season), b) Larry having to tip way more than he would have if he’d just given a small tip in the beginning; and c) Alexander’s dogs nearly getting killed

- After angering Jason Alexander with a script rewrite that led his TV alter ego to briefly drop out of the reunion, Larry insisted on playing George in the reunion episode (so meta!), right down to George’s sweater vests and the George “huh ha!” Hilarity, and potential disaster for the special had Alexander not been coerced into returning, ensued.

- After being accused by Julia Louis-Dreyfus of setting his drink down on her antique table and leaving a ring on it during a party she hosted for Jason Alexander’s book, Larry became obsessed with figuring out who was the real culprit, the person who, unlike him, did not have the proper reverence for wood. After accusing both Jerry and Susie Greene, it turned out his very own Cheryl was the guilty party.

- Alexander’s book: Acting Without Acting, a tome so thin that Larry, Jerry and Cheryl insisted it was actually a pamphlet, and so self-important that it sparked a clever bit from Jerry about acting skills (which was particularly funny since, during Seinfeld’s early years, Jerry often took critical hits for the fact that he was a comedian who was trying to act and not a “real actor”)

- And the night’s second reunion: After watching the Seinfeld reunion episode together, Larry and Cheryl reunited, and it felt so good … until Larry nearly ruined (or, as Larry would pronounce it, “rooned”) it with his realization that Cheryl was the drink ring perp.

What did you think of the finale? Did you love the Curb season? And what about the Seinfeld reunion-within-the show?

Also, since there’s been no commitment yet by Larry David for an eighth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, do you think this season finale serves as a good series finale if he doesn’t come back for another season?

And, are you still mad about that Seinfeld series finale? Or did this Curb reunion, in which George ended up happily (inasmuch as that’s possible for the neurotic New Yorker) married and Jerry and Elaine had a kid together, finally satisfy you?

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