SERIES PREMIERE: One of the executive producers of this new Zach Galifianakis series is Louis C.K., which makes perfect sense: Baskets, starring Galifianakis as a sad sack of a guy whose ambition is to be a clown in the best comedic tradition, is as much character study as comedy. But it’s fascinating. Galifianakis plays Chip Baskets, a young man who borrows money from his mom (a bizarrely cast, yet instantly endearing, Louie Anderson) to go to clown college in Paris. But he doesn’t speak French, so he fails, and instead of returning to the States with a prestigious degree, he returns with the haughty and wholly disinterested Penelope (Sabina Sciubba), who marries him only to get her green card. Back in the U.S., Chip indeed gets a job as a clown – but as a rodeo clown, in Bakersfield, where getting gored on occasion is only the least of his daily indignities. Baskets has its own rhythms, and its own sad and silent stretches which really are in the classic clown tradition. This show isn’t made to satisfy everyone’s tastes – but it sure satisfies mine. For feature stories, see David Hinckley’s All Along the Watchtower interviews with Zack Galifianakis and Martha Kelly. And for a full review, see Ed Bark’s Uncle Barky’s Bytes.