Green Screen Show

At last the pilot for Drew Carey's new show was aired. It was not bad, but I say the enthusiasm of Whose Line was missing. It was worse than a usual Whose Line episode (except the graphics), and also being an audience in the studio is worse than watching it on TV. (I watched it on TV by the way)

Participants looked a little isolated from Drew Carey.. OK, Drew Carey is good and he arranges it all but both in Whose Line and here he does 20% of the performance. It really disturbed me to see him on the spotlight and the actual performers being pushed back, sitting on a bench.

Also the departure of Ryan Stiles (apparently from more-time-with-family syndrome) and Wayne Brady (he is a star now) makes the Whose Line audience sad... But of course we have Colin (he is not only bald, but also has white hair!). This time there are 6 performers. Including Carey this is too much for a 30-minute show. Without the ads show is approximately 22-23 minutes and that means 3-3.5 minutes of screen time for each...

Animation on the pilot was really really sweet... The detail on Zeppelin was astonishing, and the horse ride was funny not only because of the performers but also those small details added by the animators (especially when Drew Carey said a 'nasty word') Also the sound effects should not be forgotten..

One more thing: the names on the ending credits are countless. Each sketch is done by 10-15 people. How much does this cost? And how long can this continue? Hopefully for a long time, but still its very risky business.

A brave show just begun, and will hopefully improve and continue to entertain in the Whose Line style but this time with more flavor! With some fine-tuning it can make into the 'do not miss' list.

Whose Line Is It Anyway was excellent, but here the special effects just distract the viewer from what made it so good. This seems like nothing but a showcase for the technical possibilities. The animations and sounds don't add anything useful to the scenes at all. It makes you feel like you're reading a book with all the events already imagined in your head as acted out by cartoon characters.

Most of the actors are still doing a good job. Colin Mochrie stands out every now and then even without Ryan Stiles. Unfortunately most of the time even his talent is wasted when wrapped in cartoons. Drew Carey's best talent is not in improvising, but here he's taken a bigger role in the games as well.

It's nowhere near as funny as Whose Line Is It Anyway.

This show isn't funny at all. They completely ruined the whole improve theme. The cartoons aren't that great and they dim down the funniness from the show. It funnier when there's nothing there. Whos idea was it to cancel Whose Line is it Anyway for this? Another big glitch, how can you have an improv show without Ryan Stiles and Wayne Brady? What the heck is going on here? Poor Colin doesn't have his comedy partner anymore. This show just isn't good at all. Some of these people I never even heard of. They're not Whose Line is it Anyway patrons. There just some plain bland comedian that came out of nowhere. Sadly I bet this show is going to be a success.

I've seen the first episode of this and to quite honest, I don't like it. Drew Carey is, as ever, consistently unfunny and barely manages to raise a smile. The animation is good but does not interact with the action very well. The performers are OK, Colin is always funny but his Whose Line? partner Ryan Stiles is missing, probably because he doesn't want to be associated with poor TV. The American audience scream when they find something funny, which is still very annoying and half the reason the US version of Whose Line? was not as good as the original.

The point of Whose Line? was that it was imporvised, they didn't have artists taking the recorded footage away and thinking about something funny to go with it.

My suggestion: go back to Whose Line?, get rid of Carey and have a regular guest pattern.

Somehow, I missed the first few programs of this show. I am a fan of the old "Whose Line is it Anyway" especially the original British version and was hoping that this would continue that tradition. But "Whose Line" had a spontaneity and intimacy which was achieved by few means besides the wit of the performers.

In adding the green screen technology and a much larger cast, this intimacy was completely destroyed and any wit the performers could bring to the program is lost in the feeble animated "cleverness" which also contradicts any concept of "spontaneity".

What is left is completely boring which the old show rarely was. (ok, maybe later on.) And a desire to see how the cast aged. That having been satisfied, there is nothing else.

It would be a kindness to perform euthanasia on this program and the sooner the better.

(added:7/05.08:) And so they did, not to my surprise!