Kelsey Grammer Presents: The Sketch Show

this show was awful, it was

a complete copy of the

British sketch show which aired in 2000 which actually had lee mack in it. they completely copy all of the sketches which were used in the British version, and is a lot less funny. The acting is poor and the dialog is cheap. i expected a lot more from Kelsey grammar who really isn't that bad at acting. the actors are not natural enough, and it is evident through their body language and the way they deliver their lines that it has been over rehearshed, it basicaly lacks the spontinaety that the original British version had. lee mack was also a lot funnier in the British version, i feel that his American co stars are bringing him down to a certain degree. i know that this may sound harsh but i see no need for this show to be remade as it was

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.

Just saw the first episode. The best sketches were a downright copy of the original UK series. They still got me laughing, because the original was so good, it could never become bad. But the phobia sketch was horribly mutilated and wasn't funny at all. The bad sketches were those where Kelsey came in, except for the psychiatrist sketch maybe. They just weren't up to par with the others.

If you can watch the original UK series, don't bother with this. If you can't, this is not really a bad replacement. I have seen worse remakes. For example, the US version of Red Dwarf comes to mind, amongst a lot of others :)

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