[7.2/10] Well, this one fell off a cliff after a while, but it had two really great sketches that lifted it up into quality territory.
One of them is the skit where the Queen of England pranks her guard and all her party guests into a tug of war over whom should leave and whom should stay. It approaches a comedy of manners (and those sets may be left over from Blackadder), but the bit gets better and better as the guests come up with more and more elaborate reasons to stick around, the guard tries harder and harder to kick them out, and the Queen smirks in the background and continues to play “let’s you and him” fight. It’s a delightfully silly sketch.
I also really enjoyed the bit with the two guys who get into a contratempt at a bar to where they’re threatening to fight each other and refuse to back down, and get so into it that they get married and have a life together. It’s another delightfully high concept premise from the show, with great commitment from Bob & David, and the lengths the show goes to with it is great. There’s something honestly kind of adorable about the whole thing, and Bob’s “Oh, my life” at the end is funny but kind of sweet. A+!
The rest of the episode is a mixed bag, with a lot of dated references. The opening riff on Politically Incorrect is an amusing enough skewering on know-nothing celebrities being put up to debate the news of the day, but doesn't have much in the way of incisive commentary. The International News Report sketch is a pitch perfect parody of the BBC style, but it’s fairly wasted in a flat sketch that amounts to a rhyme about a fart joke. (Though Jay Johnston’s line about the flatulence being between “me, my wife, my pants, and our god” is a good one.)
Treating Heaven like an exclusive club made for a solid, brief skit, but the follow-up, with God doing an autobiography like a self-serving celebrity autobiography is a decent joke that should have been done in a much tighter and punchier fashion. And the last sketch, which riffs on Sightings of all things, absolutely died on the vines. There’s still comedic hay to be made from silly faux-news shows about the paranormal, but building everything about “Monster Mash”-esque novelty songs doesn't really pay dividends. The show at least tries to take the sketch into some interesting and different places (and I was not really expecting a Dr. Demento spoof), but the results just aren’t there.
Overall, this one survives into “good” territory based on those two superb sketches, but the other material isn’t anywhere near as good.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2018-08-02T20:24:52Z
[7.2/10] Well, this one fell off a cliff after a while, but it had two really great sketches that lifted it up into quality territory.
One of them is the skit where the Queen of England pranks her guard and all her party guests into a tug of war over whom should leave and whom should stay. It approaches a comedy of manners (and those sets may be left over from Blackadder), but the bit gets better and better as the guests come up with more and more elaborate reasons to stick around, the guard tries harder and harder to kick them out, and the Queen smirks in the background and continues to play “let’s you and him” fight. It’s a delightfully silly sketch.
I also really enjoyed the bit with the two guys who get into a contratempt at a bar to where they’re threatening to fight each other and refuse to back down, and get so into it that they get married and have a life together. It’s another delightfully high concept premise from the show, with great commitment from Bob & David, and the lengths the show goes to with it is great. There’s something honestly kind of adorable about the whole thing, and Bob’s “Oh, my life” at the end is funny but kind of sweet. A+!
The rest of the episode is a mixed bag, with a lot of dated references. The opening riff on Politically Incorrect is an amusing enough skewering on know-nothing celebrities being put up to debate the news of the day, but doesn't have much in the way of incisive commentary. The International News Report sketch is a pitch perfect parody of the BBC style, but it’s fairly wasted in a flat sketch that amounts to a rhyme about a fart joke. (Though Jay Johnston’s line about the flatulence being between “me, my wife, my pants, and our god” is a good one.)
Treating Heaven like an exclusive club made for a solid, brief skit, but the follow-up, with God doing an autobiography like a self-serving celebrity autobiography is a decent joke that should have been done in a much tighter and punchier fashion. And the last sketch, which riffs on Sightings of all things, absolutely died on the vines. There’s still comedic hay to be made from silly faux-news shows about the paranormal, but building everything about “Monster Mash”-esque novelty songs doesn't really pay dividends. The show at least tries to take the sketch into some interesting and different places (and I was not really expecting a Dr. Demento spoof), but the results just aren’t there.
Overall, this one survives into “good” territory based on those two superb sketches, but the other material isn’t anywhere near as good.