David Tench Tonight

So like at the beginning of the year we started seeing little teasers of this David Tench character. The marketing was a lot like the even more humorless show 'The Wedge' but i'm not going to get into that. So finally we find out that Tench is in fact an animated character. At first I thought that this was an interesting idea, not a great idea but something that I would have to see for myself. But when you watch the show, you are treated to lame, stupid one liners and lousy boring interviews.

He promised interviews from some of the world's greatest celebrities which is strange because when was some guy who wrote a thriller novel a world's greatest celebrity? But you shouldn't expect much from this show. All you have to to do is sit there in boredom and watch as the guests have more fun than the people who are watching them. You should see them, they crack up at every crap joke that Tench says. This however excludes the American guests who realize halfway through the interview what a horrible mistake they've made as they don't seem to really enjoy the fact that they are talking to thin air.

All in all, 2006 is the year in which all Australian TV stations have attempted to introduce new shows which end up getting hated and shunned upon by the public, but it isn't the worst show on TV, it's just plain crap and uninteresting. This show would be more appealing as an internet thing but not a TV thing as the novelty of David Tench gets real old, real fast.

After the lame 'Garbo-is-coming' style advertising on channel 10, I wasn't expecting much from this show and actually didn't bother watching the first couple of episodes. I finally gave in and watched last weeks episode with Meatloaf, and wow, David Tench Tonight is terrible.

The most problematic thing for me is the guy who voices Tench. The creators really needed to either make David an Australian host, or actually get an American actor to play the part because his accent is horribly inconsistent and his voice sounds more like some idiot is making a prank phone call pretending to be an old woman than an over the top American talk show host. This becomes embarrassingly apparent when there is an actual American guest on the program.

The next thing is the writing. It's obvious that they wanted to create a provocative persona, but the supposedly edgy un-pc jokes fall flat and are unlikely to offend the audience or the guests - who, by the way, often look extremely embarrassed to be on such a pathetic TV show.

All of this combined with the creepy, well repulsive actually, animated face of Tench makes for a boring unsatisfying half hour. I didn't so much as smile once while watching this, and I can't imagine many other people finding this crap funny either.

"David Tench Tonight", aired on Network Ten, is quite possibly the worst show airing on free-to-air TV these days.

The host, David Tench is an annoying computer animated character who doesn't have anything original or funny to say. He sits there and big-notes himself for a half an hour whilst also finding time to ridicule his guests who, for some reason, have agreed to appear on this thirty minute waste of celluloid.

With a massive promotion push weeks before the show aired, I was sucked in and had to see what it was. I'm sorry I did. I could have been doing something better, like watching grass grow or paint dry. But for some reason channel 10 has kept this show on air, despite the horrible ratings which have declined every week since the show first aired.

And the guests, famous, dignified men and women come onto this show expecting a decent interview. Instead David asks completely inappropriate questions and insults them while trying to say how great he is at the same time. Granted, most of the guests go along with the charade, others clearly get angry and annoyed at the animations antics.

I think the only reason anyone ever watches this show is to get through to Ronnie John's Half Hour airing straight after, because there is nothing funny or witty about Mr. Tench.

Channel 10 should take a long hard look at what exactly they're airing here.

David Tench Tonight was promoted on Australian TV for many weeks before it finally hit the small screen. It began with a number of tantalizing and Politically Incorrect witticisms, shown in a print form, and attributed to this person. Then we were treated to views of his desk. Still a few weeks before going to air, we finally discover that he is not a real person at all but a badly proportioned puppet thing. Well after all that lengthy build up it turned out to be a major let down. Only two of Tench's comments in the pilot episode brought a faint smile to my lips and, before the episode had finished, I couldn't even remember what one of them was. This is an extremely unfunny show. I'm not sure what age group it was intended to attract, but I think it will fail to impress anybody. I'm just amazed that it has lasted as long as it has without someone pulling the plug.

Maybe it's lazy writing, maybe it's the fact that a group of failed actors and comedian's are attempting to live vicariously through a CGI puppet. It's quite sad, when you realise a show like the glasshouse even with it's success is been canceled and we have to contend with this poor excuse for entertainment. Maybe Ten might see it in their infinite wisdom to consider the possibility of renewing the Glasshouse for a run on channel Ten to fill the void of this proverbial, half arse attempt, because quite frankly given Tench's immense support base it doesn't appear to be at all intuitive or insightful, what a waste of animation and time.