Kelsey Grammer Presents: The Sketch Show

Network: Fox; Genre: Sketch; Content Rating: TV-PG (for adult content and dark comedy); Classification: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Season Reviewed: Complete Series (6 episodes)

It may have been slight, shallow, short-lived and a overseas concept anyway, but "Kelsey Grammar Presents The Sketch Show" solves one of the biggest problems that come with the sketch comedy series. Many sketch shows present us with a funny idea and then stretch the life out of it trying to get it to full sketch length. "Sketch Show" keeps things alive with a unique format that packs several unrelated sketches into 22 minutes - with a different sketch every few seconds, some of which connect.

"Sketch" was the 2005 British remake that wasn't "The Office". Produced and lending his credible appearance to some of the skits is sitcom legend Kelsey Grammar himself. The show is fast enough to keep up with the attention of the MTV generation but the jokes feel at least 30 years behind the times. The sketches are made of quick one-liners, puns or a stupidly funny piece of slapstick. Two knights show up at a hotel asking for a room for two nights, an astronaut locks himself out of the lunar rover, two cops give news that a man's wife has died through song. A low point comes in a psychiatrist (hot Kaitlin Olson) who whines back at her patients. It is all intensely lame stuff, but done as such a fast pace it becomes watchable, even addictive. If only to see what will come next. Proving the shorter-the-better theory with sketch comedy, it is usually the longer sketches that become the most tiresome.

The biggest attraction is the inclusion of Mary Lynn Rajskub. Fans will be interested to see Rajskub outside of her role as socially dysfunctional Chloe O'Brien on a hiatus during "24's" 4th season and in her comic element. A bit in which Rajskub plays a wedding photographer is a series high. Which also says a lot about the show's limits.

There is no satire, no parody here, no desire to appeal to the kids and nothing that can be identifiable as coming from this decade. I'm sure Grammar was going for a timeless quality, which is rather refreshing on an American network. Grammar has succeeding in bringing something that is distinctly British to American shores once again. It's almost karma that "The Sketch Show" lasted about as long as the average British TV season.

* * / 4

This show is a hark back to the halcyon days of sketch-variety-show TV--all the way from Laugh-In and The Smothers Brothers to the early Saturday Night Live. There's nothing like it on TV today. No, they don't hit one out of the park with every sketch, but neither did SNL every time, did they now? And no, maybe it's not cutting-edge or avant-garde or whatever y'all seem to be looking for who don't like it, but you know what? It's darn funny. It's simple humor, and if there's not an audience out there these days for simple humor, well, that's just their loss. I for one thank Kelsey Grammar for taking a chance. And Lee What's-His-Name, the British guy, is the next big thing or I'll eat my hat. (And when was the last time you heard somebody say THAT?) Just sign me...Somebody Who Still Reads Robert Benchley For Laughs

First of all, I would like to congratulate Kelsey Grammar and the cast of "The Sketch Show." The premiere episode was tonight, and it was fantastic. I am very excited to have such original, smart humor and I look forward to many more episodes to come. I was introduced to some new talents, all of whom were fantastic. It was nice to witness Kelsey in these light humored scenarios. Although "Fraiser," which was fantastic, was filled with laughs, there is something new and refreshing about this program. I am very much a fan of the way the situational skits flow into each other, some, connecting back to previous skits, with renewed laughter, and the way the even express about the occasional one liners. It was also a pleasure to see the uniquely beautiful Mary Lynn Rajskub, of "24," and "Punch Drunk Love," fame playing something so openly funny and true to herself. I can't wait to see more. Everyone must check out this show!

Alright, so I really wanted to enjoy this show. Veterans of Mr. Show With Bob And David will always have a soft spot in my heart (yes, even Paul F. Tompkins), and Kelsey Grammar is a good guy as well. But the show has to meet me half-way at the very least. The writing just isn't all that clever, and this is made excruciatingly clear in the longer routines. Were there some laughs? Yes. Some of the visual gags were decent, and a couple the fifteen-second / one-liner skits worked fairly well, but a four-minute skit about moronic group of backup vocalists really just makes the half-hour drag. The show is entirely hit-or-miss, and the hit ratio is going to need a whole lot of improvement if this program is going to outlive The Downer Channel's six-or-so-episode run. Mad TV at least makes me expect less, but with this show's cast, I'm going to have to be a bit more demanding.

This show has just been airing in Australia in the afternoons, and i was a little confused at first when i switched channels and saw it. I've seen that several sketches here are reused from the UK show THE SKETCH SHOW.... check that out and compare... i think i prefer the sketches originally performed on the UK show to this re-enactment although i don't have a problem with any of the performers here ... the humour just seems to be more like British writing than U.S.... Wouldn't u think that if Kelsey Grammar's name is featured in it, he would have written or presented new sketches...i guess they are NEW for an unknowing U.S audience.... It still is entertaining though, and beats watching lame cooking shows.