Louis C.K.’s new show Horace and Pete, available to view only on his website, is best experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible. Set in a 100-year-old bar in Brooklyn, its premise might initially seem familiar, and indeed this is a show where bartenders and customers trade jabs about their personal lives and the day’s goings-on like they’ve known each other for years. But it’s no sitcom. Horace and Pete is, in fact, an intense family melodrama that unfurls with all the blunt force of an Arthur Miller play. Though it perhaps has more in common with a different medium—theater—the series is one of the most innovative, invigorating pieces of television in years.

But perhaps most importantly, through six episodes, the show doesn’t feel remotely beholden to the traditional demands of a studio, and it has a huge effect on the narrative. There’s no need for ad breaks, no desire to snap the story back to a status quo, and a genuine thrill to be found in having no idea what might happen next. C.K. doesn’t need to make 22 of these a year. He could make five more, or 50—the only thing constraining him is his own creativity. On the face of it, Horace and Pete could herald some glorious era of independent television. More likely, it’s going to end up a wonderful, strange anomaly.

In a way, though, it feels similar to the show’s titular bar—it’s an old-school curiosity that manages to capitalize on its co-existence with the smoother, more corporate world around it. In the show, younger Brooklynites often drop by the bar simply out of fascination with its existence—it doesn’t even serve mixed drinks, so how could it turn a profit? The experience might be unusual, but it’s worth trying just for the fact that there may never be anything like it again.