New series’ Gen Zers are desperate and difficult but very watchable

Unto every generation, and fraction thereof, a sitcom is born, in which the young people of the moment state their case, self-mockingly. FX recently gave us a State of New York Youth in “Adults,” and here we are now with “I Love LA,” which premiered last weekend on HBO, the network of “Girls” (your guide to the 20-teens), still the most prestigious slot on linear television.

Note: This trailer contains language that may not be suitable for all viewers.

As a native of this fair city, who will never call downtown “DTLA” — let alone #DTLA — I miss the days when the rest of the country wanted nothing to do with us. I can get a little cranky when it comes to the gentrihipsterfication of the city by succeeding hordes of newly minted Angelenos.

I’m just putting my cards on the table here, as I approach characters whose generational concerns are distinct from mine, even as they belong to a venerable screen tradition, that of Making It in Hollywood, which runs back to the silent era.

Created by and starring Rachel Sennott (“Bottoms”), “I Love LA” takes its title from a Randy Newman song written well before Sennott or any of her co-stars were born.

As in many such shows, there is a coterie of easily distinguishable friends at its center. Sennott plays Maia, turning 27 and in town for two years, working as an assistant to talent/brand manager Alyssa (the wonderful Leighton Meester) and hungry for promotion.

Back into her life comes Tallulah (Odessa A’zion, the daughter of Pamela Adlon, whose throatiness she has inherited), a New York City It Girl whose It-ness has lately gone bust, as has Tallulah herself, now broke and rootless. She is one of those exhausting whirlwind personalities one might take to be on drugs, except that there are people who really do run at that speed, without speed — Holly Go-Heavily.

Charlie (Jordan Firstman) is a stylist whose career depends on flattery and performative flamboyance. Alani (True Whitaker) is the daughter of a successful film director who has presumably paid for her very nice house, with its view of the Silver Lake Reservoir, and whatever she needs. Since she wants for nothing, she’s the least stressful presence here, invested in spiritual folderol in a way that isn’t annoying.

Attached to the quartet, but not really of it, is Maia’s supportive boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), a grade-school teacher and the only character I came close to identifying with. Do the kids still call them “normies”? Or did they ever, really?

That I find some of these people more trying than charming doesn’t prevent “I Love LA” from being a show I actually quite like. (The ratio of charm to annoyance may be flipped for some viewers, of course.) If anything, it’s a testament to Sennott and company having done their jobs well; the production is tight, the dialogue crisp, the photography rich — nothing here seems the least bit accidental. The cast is on point playing people who in real life they may not resemble at all.