Holy fuck this show is addictive. I started watching it this past weekend, and I'm already halfway through Season 2. They end each episode with some sudden cliffhanger...I can't help but watch the next episode. I gotta slow down.

The central plot is fairly cliche: the witty, badass, alcoholic asshole tries to win back his wife and kids. However, the side-stories and all of the peripheral characters are equally (if not more) interesting. Some sort of drama tends to develop with all of the characters, and even if their problem isn't all that exciting, I still find myself glued to the screen. The dialogue and rapport between the fire-fighters is brilliant, and often the jokes come at a machine-gun pace. There's also a creative, sort-of fantasy element to it, in that the main character tends to talk to dead people or have crazy dreams. It's done in a way where everything is still grounded in reality, but at the same time it doesn't really feel like the main character is truly crazy either.

The show kind of reminds me of Californication, but much more broad, and minus all of the ridiculously unbelievable bullshit. I mean, Californication is funny, but it's about an unemployed writer with an endless flow of money, who walks around all day drinking, smoking, making witty remarks, occasionally doing coke, and getting laid with every single woman he meets, sometimes within minutes. Rescue Me captures all of the "coolness" inherent in that type of character, but it's actually realistic. In fact, the main character himself actually just has a steady relationship, and any remaining sex in the show is distributed realistically among the other fire-fighter characters.

Anyways, great fucking show. Watch 1 episode and I guarantee you'll be hooked.

EDIT: Oh, and since I brought up Californication, I should also add that Hank Moody's approach to getting his wife back was fucking pussy shit compared to Tom Gavin's. Jesus Christ on a fucking whole wheat cracker.

I quite enjoy what I've seen of the show, but I'm waiting for Foxtel to start playing it from the season 1 pilot before I start watching it again. I remember being quite suprised at how good of a serious actor Leary has become in recent years.

Denis Leary is fucking hilarious, Rescue Me is a testament of his true dramatic talent. I haven't really seen much of the show lately, are they coming out with a new season or anything? Every time I watch an episode it makes me want to be a firefighter even if it meant being a recovering alcoholic that fucks his dead cousins wife and sometimes my ex. Gotta love it.

they've had these "mini-sodes" for awhile, which pisses me off...I think the writers strike gummed up the works on a full new season or something. But yeah, a brilliant show.

It's sort of like the male equivalent to sex and the city.

Heh, good call, though I'd call it the polar opposite. Sex and the City is all ovaries and feminism. Rescue Me is all balls, chauvinism, and badassery.

Entourage is probably more of a direct "male equivalent" of Sex and the City, in that all of the main characters are pussy douchebags.

(I only replied because I wanted to insult Entourage. Carry on. )

I actually was going to buy seasons 1 and 2 of Rescue Me but I had no idea what the show was about.