Thank God You're Here

Get the right actors/actresses in there, and it's funny. Harland Williams, Kevin Nealon and Wayne Knight were my favorites. Some of the other stars didn't do improv so well...they might wanna screen some of these people first...

Brian Cranston and Tom Green did okay, although I think those two went over the top. Chelsea Handler and Shannon Elizabeth did a pretty good job, too, but there were moments of "non-funnyness" in their performances.

The other performers I've seen so far just didn't do well in my opinion, but I think the show is definitely worth watching just so you don't miss those classic performances like with Harland Williams.

Seemed like a great concept, even if it was borrowed from another country. But a great concept doesn't equal a great show. The improv done here is horribly unfunny and amateurish. Jokes repeatedly fall flat because they just aren't funny on any level. It's just a bunch of actors that were funny on other shows because the humor was written for them. Put them in an improv situation and they are lost. The show was painful to watch, I would avoid future episodes like the plague, unless they can bring in some actual comedians.

Oh and Foley and Grier are doing their best to pretend any of what they are witnessing is the least bit funny, but even they are failing miserably.

A weekly improvised sketch game show that features four celebrities as they walk into a live sketch without a script. The only thing they can count on is the greeting from a fellow actor in the skit, who proclaims upon their arrival, "Thank God You're Here!" Based on an Australian show.

This is truly a hit or miss show. The biggest factor is the performer. They need someone with a quick mind, experience doing standup, manic energy, and a willingness to be inappropriate. There aren't that many great ones around. When it's funny, it could be hilarious. But there're just too many unfunny sketches.

Thank God Your Here itself is a cool, inventive idea. Gather a group of C List actors and comedians and force them into situations requiring them to think on their feet while performing an improv skit. The only problem is that the entertainment of the show solely relies on the actor's ability to improv. In some cases the performer has been able to think on their feet and create a really entertaining scene (like Shannon Elizabeth, Chelsea Handler, Bryan Cranston, Fran Drescher) however there have also been the performer's that aren't very good at thinking on their feet and just sort of go with the flow instead of taking control of the scene and guiding it to funnier places (Tom Green, Tom Arnold, Joel McHale). I would definitely recommend you take a look at the show and decide for yourself, it's a show that can be really funny at times.

Network: NBC; Genre: Remake; Reality, Comedy, Game; Content Rating: TV-PG (some suggestive adult content);

Season Reviewed: Series (1 season)

4 performers who walk through a door into a set they have never seen and are forced to bluff their way through a scene they know nothing about, all the while try to avoid being tripped up by the regular cast. With a premise imported from Australia, "Thank God You're Here" promises a free-for-all comedy playground. It could have easily been so much fun.

"Here" is, at best, only as funny as that segment's guest and given that most of them are actors and not comics that is more often than not, not very funny. Some of the players (or victims) are well known sitcom stars (Wayne Knight, Jason Alexander, Wendi Malik), some improv masters (Fred Willard disappoints but Jane Lynch steals the show) and some - like the receptionist in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" or George Takai - you've got to wonder what they're doing here. However, Takai is a real hoot as a doctor who walks through the door and gets a jump on the first line. Bryan Cranston proves he really is more talented than the final seasons of "Malcolm in the Middle" led on. Some, such as Lynch and Eddie Kaye Thomas, are almost able to create a character in the few minutes before Dave Foley hits the buzzer to put them out of their misery.

But then there are those performers that are grating to watch. Mo'Nique, "comedian" Shannon Elizabeth and set-destroying Tom Green do their usual tiresome lowest common denominator acts. "Here" never exactly hits comic brilliance, but with these questionable talents on the set treated just like everybody else the show becomes downright insufferable.

As always, Foley (fresh from celebrity poker commentary) is fun to listen to as judge while David Allen Grier is in look-away, full-blown family-friendly cartoon mode. Is Foley free to poke fun at this show or is he really exorcising frustration over a contractual obligation. I don't know and that's why Foley is so good. The regular players (including "Significant Others" Brian Palermo – God, I feel for him) are often funnier than the guests.

Some of the set pieces are clever in concept, some of them are not. Mostly it is set up like a theatrical Mad-Libs requiring the guest to complete sentences ("The three S's of success are…") or spontaneously make up a song and dance. Throw actors in a situation like this and (without Wayne Brady in sight) you are bound to get results that aren't always pretty, but most here are cringingly unfunny in an "America's Funniest Home Videos" sort of way. As "Videos" made notorious, "Here" uses frequent shots of an audience that is either euphoric to be in a real TV studio or lubed up on a great warm-up act to tell us that it is supposed to be funny. But for me is only mild amusement in seeing a celebrity sweat or stare out at the crowd blankly as they've just been tripped up by a line they didn't expect.

"Here" is one of those shows that exists in a Hollywood bubble; the bubble in which actors are patting each other on the back and assuming if they are enjoying themselves, than you out there in flyover country must be too. It is so amused with itself, so free to wink and nod at it's own camp and frivolousness that it never tries to be anything better. As I watched I just constantly wanted more. I wanted it pushed further. Edgier or funnier or more sophisticated. Just more on every level. It is Drew Carey in "Whose Line is it Anyway?" telling us that "the points don't matter" all over again. By God, why don't the points matter? Why is there nothing at stake? And if not, why should I watch?

½ / 4