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Desperate times call for desperate measures and Ray Drecker's situation couldn't be much tougher. The former high school sports legend turned middle-aged high school basketball coach is divorced and struggling to provide for his kids when his already run-down house catches fire. Looking to take on a second job, Ray decides to exploit his best asset in a last-ditch attempt to change his fortunes.
Created by Dmitry Lipkin (creator of 'The Riches') and Colette Burson, HUNG uses dark humor to tell the story of a man fighting to survive personal setbacks that have been compounded by a troubled economy.
The series stars Thomas Jane ('The Punisher,' '*61') as Ray Drecker; Jane Adams ('Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind') as Ray's business partner, Tanya Skagle; Anne Heche ('Men in Trees') as Ray's ex-wife, Jessica Haxon; Eddie Jemison ('Ocean's Thirteen') as Jessica's successful husband Ronnie; Sianoa Smit-McPhee ('As the Bell Rings') as Ray's daughter Darby; and Charlie Saxton ('The Lovely Bones') as Ray's son Damon.
Created by Dmitry Lipkin and Colette Burson; executive producers, Colette Burson, Dmitry Lipkin, Alexander Payne, Michael Rosenberg, John Morayniss and Noreen Halpern; co-executive producers, Scott Stephens and Emily Kapnek

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From Ken Tucker:

Take a title like Hung on a network like HBO, and you pretty much know what you're getting into with this new comedy. It stars the Punisher, Thomas Jane, as Ray Drecker, a schlub on the skids. Ray is a failed pro athlete, and now a bored high school coach. His 20-year marriage has ended, and his ex-wife, played by Anne Heche in her fearlessly unlikable mode (translation: If you loved Men in Trees, you won't enjoy her here), has married a rich guy who makes Ray feel inadequate. He pines for more time with his two teenage kids (Sianoa Smit-McPhee and Charlie Saxton), but their mom has custody most of the time.

See? I went a whole paragraph without saying that Ray has a gigantic penis. That's Hung's hook: Ray is built like the proverbial stallion, but he has to work like a mule to make ends meet. In this series, co-created by Dmitry Lipkin (The Riches) and Colette Burson, it doesn't take long for Ray to reach a stress point—most of his house burns down and he has to sleep in a tent because he can't afford anything better—to use his endowment to make money.

Ray has a one-night stand with a pleasantly neurotic poet named Tanya, played by the excellent Jane Adams (Frasier's Mel Karnofsky). They have no romantic spark, but she's looking to get out of a dead-end job, so Tanya, impressed by Ray's member, proposes that she become Ray's "pimp". Her business plan: They'll make their service distinctive, more classy-woman-friendly, by calling themselves "happiness consultants"—so much less crude than "escort service". Or "man-whore". (Hey, Tanya says that, not me.)

Unfortunately, Hung makes all the double entendres you'd expect. Ray says you have to make do with "whatever gifts God gave ya". A motivational speaker tells Ray, in advising him to come up with a marketable idea, to "identify your own tool" for success. Tanya and Ray's business is a "joint project".

This show's biggest problem is that aside from limp jokes, it seems to cancel out its two audiences: Women may be turned off by the notion that all gals want a thick sausage, and men may yawn because it's not explicit enough by HBO standards. (Compared with Hung, Entourage is an X-rated bacchanal.) Thomas Jane, though, is a revelation—he plays hopeless haplessness without coming off wimpy, and his initial uncomfortableness as a pro gigolo is charming. But Hung's awkward tone (partly intentional, since the pilot was directed by Alexander Payne, writer-director of that gem of awkward comedy Sideways) becomes frustrating. The series needs to commit: Either evolve into a funny, sexy stud-romp or hang it up.

C+

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By Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger (link):

It's difficult to write about "Hung," HBO's new comedy about a well-endowed gym-teacher-turned-male-escort, without making an accidental double entendre or 12. After I watched the first episode, which runs about 42 minutes, and the second, which was only 26, I started asking questions about its length (it's a half-hour with a super-sized debut), and the first draft of this paragraph began with a synonym for "difficult."

Not helping matters is the way "Hung" itself embraces every joke you could make about its premise. Main character Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), for instance, is inspired to join the world's oldest profession after attending a get-rich-quick seminar where the teacher advises each student to identify their "one winning tool."

If "Hung" were just a lot of obvious punch lines about the male anatomy -- and about the mortification of an aging jock having to sell his body and work for a female pimp -- well... well, then it would still be a funny, albeit completely juvenile comedy about the state of 21st century American masculinity.

But "Hung" has more to offer than just John Thomas jokes. Amidst all the sn1ggering humor about how Ray has been taught to "do your best with the gifts God gave you" is some smart comedy about the state of 21st century America in general, as well as a superb lead performance from Thomas Jane.

Jane ("The Punisher") has been flirting with movie stardom for the last decade without quite getting there, though his best work of that period was in another HBO project, as a self-destructive Mickey Mantle in "61*." Something about the pay cable channel seems to suit him, and with a little luck (and a lead-in from "True Blood"), this should be the vehicle to finally make him a household name.

Jane has some mileage on him now as Ray, a divorced, aging jock facing financial ruin after he lets his insurance lapse right before his house catches fire. And while he's still in fine shape for the inevitable nude scenes, Jane plays Ray as a tightly coiled disappointment to himself. Ray will briefly direct his frustration at ex-wife Jessica (Anne Heche) for leaving him for a rich dermatologist, or at an obnoxious neighbor who thought Ray was bringing down his property values even before the fire. But mostly, Ray recognizes that he's to blame for his misfortune -- that he's just desperate and pathetic enough to deserve a sex industry career.

"What happened to my life?" Ray asks in voiceover narration. "I used to be a big deal. I used to be going somewhere. Now all I do is try not to drown. When did life become something you buy?"

Despite Ray's various failings as a man, husband and father (his two teenage kids move back in with Jessica after the fire), and despite his dire economic circumstances -- lest we miss the point, the series is set in Detroit -- Jane is exceedingly likable. In the same way that the innate appeal of Bryan Cranston makes "Breaking Bad" seem a lot less grim than its storylines would suggest, Jane's charisma and willingness to make himself the butt of the joke turns what could be depressing material into something lighter (not light, but lighter) and more engaging than you'd expect.

A heavy reliance on the appeal of its leading man isn't the only quality "Hung" shares with "Breaking Bad." Like that show, "Hung" deals with a family man forced into an illegal side job by a desperate situation, and it recognizes that going from law-abiding citizen to profitable criminal isn't as easy as pop culture usually makes it seem. "Hung" creators Dmitry Lipkin and Colette Burson take us step-by-careful-step through Ray's attempt to profit off his most marketable asset, showing that a winning tool alone isn't enough to get the job done.

To that end, they pair Ray off with Tanya Skagle (Jane Adams), a would-be poet who mostly works office temp jobs but dreams of selling "lyric bread" (loafs and pastries with laminated poems inserted). Tanya, a former one-night stand of Ray's, offers to market Ray's services -- she suggests referring to him as a "happiness consultant" rather than an escort -- in exchange for a percentage, which leads to Ray asking the mousy, flaky Tanya, "What proof do I have that you're a good pimp?"

Adams, who was Niles Crane's bitter second ex-wife on "Frasier," has an easy chemistry with Jane, and the gender role reversal becomes the series' most reliable source of humor.

Lipkin's previous show, FX's "The Riches," also was a dark series about the emotional cost of illegally getting rich quick, but it seemed almost allergic to laughter, despite the presence of the normally funny Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as its stars. And that made Lipkin's various sociological points difficult to sit through.

This time, Lipkin and Burson seem to have recognized that with a great endowment comes great responsibility to make jokes about it -- especially if those jokes then provide cover to talk about everything else.