Legit begins with Jim being picked up from the airport by his hapless buddy Steve (Veep's Dan Bakkedah), whose family he lived with as a foreign exchange student. Steve also has a younger brother named Billy (DJ Qualls) who suffers from MS and lives in a group home. Jim agrees to grant Billy's last wish of experiencing a woman, and soon after ends up liberating him from his depressing living situation altogether, allowing him to experience the alcohol/drug/sex-fueled and laid-back lifestyle he never had the opportunity to before. All this is despite the protests of Billy and Steve's high-strung and overbearing mother (Lily Tomlin), who always hated Jim. The cast is rounded out by Billy's old mentally challenged roommate Rodney (who is actually pretty high functioning) and his large opinionated caretaker Ramona. Although these characters appear in many of the episodes (only Jim, Steve, and Billy are in all of them), each episode typically features its own singular story with new characters involved, providing new comic fodder for Jim's observations (delivered more like rants to various people, without scenes of stand-up performances like in Louie). This basic set up actually allows for plenty of surprising laugh-out-loud developments, such as when Jim completely shatters the worldview of a shy personal trainer, revealing to him that physical fitness has nothing to do with happiness or the ability to pick up women. Jim also passes his knowledge of the opposite sex and quick pickup tactics onto Billy and Steve, although he does run into some trouble himself when he has an affair with a local celebrity who must then be smuggled past paparazzi in a suitcase. Much like Louie, it is difficult to fully describe Legit, as its format can change up a little episode to episode (although there is a cold open scene in each episode, similar to Louie's regular stand-up scenes). However, it is actually much more consistently hilarious, as Jim Jefferies trades Louie's bleak resignation and often dark comedy for a more optimistic perspective that also preaches equality, even if that sense of equality entails mocking and taking advantage of your disabled friend just as much as you do everyone else.
Although not as consistently funny as Legit, Maron is probably more in line with Louie's comedic sensibility, although it tends to be more grounded in reality. However, much like the way Louie features numerous scenes of stand-up throughout an episode, Maron features various snippets of Marc doing his podcast (both of him interviewing that episode's celebrity guest and just monologuing) that tie into the events of the episode (a trope that was first pioneered in Seinfeld before Louie). Furthermore, Maron is more similar to Louie in that Maron himself is essentially the only star of the show, although there are a few characters like his father and his assistant who appear in a few episodes (like Louie's daughters). Maron also involves a lot of middle-aged dating (though he typically dates well below his age) and ruminating on the various other issues that concern the forty-something single man (as opposed to the mid-30s Jefferies). In addition to dating, another topic commonly addressed in Maron is the state of his career, as he is a contemporary of successful comedians like Louis C.K. (he even appeared in a great episode of Louie this last season) and Sarah Silverman, but has nowhere near their level of fame. As a result, it may not be so surprising that Maron is also even more pessimistic and cynical than Louie (so on the bitterness scale, its Legit-Louie-Maron, which is perhaps the strongest difference between the three), but he knows it and everyone around him calls him out on it so one aspect of the series entails him trying to be better, whether that means taking care of more things around his house or dating more seriously women than slutty comedy fans. One of the best episodes of the season featured Marc at lunch with an old college friend, who is now a successful mainstream director, so he can get a part in one of his movies. The episode features various fantasy scenes of how Maron's life would have been altered had he went on slightly different paths, revealing the pros and cons to those other lifestyles (another great episode featured Maron becoming an AA sponsor to an ex-con played my Danny Trejo and accompanying him around LA to help him turn his life around). I'm sure Maron is a pretty direct representation of his podcast only in a scripted format, though I've never listened to it myself and its not at all a prerequisite for watching the series.
So between the two, I'd recommend Legit first, as it features more unexpectedness and hilarity in its execution, although Maron is probably the one that fits closer to the tone of Louie. Either way, its still along way until 2014, so why not try both? At the very least they will help tide you over (and there's always Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm reruns as well, to further help you fill that comedian-sitcom void...)
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