The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show

Love Iliza's stand up. This show was funny bite sized skits. Not all are hilarious but there were some laugh out loud moments each episode. Light and funny 😄

I am not sure what I watched in the past that made me think Iliza Shlezinger was funny, but that was my thinking when I tried watching her sketch show.

Benny Hill she is not. Not even remotely. It seems like there was an effort made and money was spent, but the product of this work is somehow less than the sum of its parts. It's as if all of the sketches are only funny to her, or to whoever wrote them.

Have you ever been with a friend and they said something that they thought was funny and you told them not to quit their day job because it didn't seem funny to you? Somebody should have said that here, at the beginning of the first episode.

To add some perspective, today I am at home because of COVID-19. My work is closed and the mayor of our town has declared only essential travel and for everyone to stay home. I literally have nothing better to do but watch television, and my expectations are not very high. I have decided that random YouTube blooper videos are much, much funnier than the Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show.

I like Iliza, she's a great standup and is great on podcasts. Her humour just doesn't translate to sketch shows.

This is corny, unfunny, virtue signalling garbage. It's lazy writing, and desperately tries to force the idea that women can be guys too, and that all are just as funny. Starting out with a with a man shouting that women aren't funny, and then the show trying to self label as the "Female Jackass" in some effort to prove the metaphorical man wrong, that women can be crazy and hilarious too would have been a point better proven if the show had a single laugh in it. Oh the irony. I gave this one star as a courtesy, because if it had a star for every laugh in it, it would have zero stars.

It's unfortunate no one at Netflix gives talent any notes for creative freedom purposes, but it results in garbage like this being 90% of what's on Netflix. You will not laugh even a single time. Nikki Glaser, Amy Shumer, Whitney Cummings and Natasha Leggero have all done way funnier stuff outside of standup.

This is what happens when someone who gets more virtue signalling applause than laughs makes a sketch show with no producer to let them know the show doesn't have a shred of funny in it. It's pathetic feminist man bashing and a raking in of perpetual victimhood currency. If you're a man watching this you might as well have an IQ around Bert Kreisher levels to find this funny, because the condescending pretentiousness will make anyone with even average intelligence vomit.

Are you the kind of woman who thinks they're funny because all of your girlfriends laugh at your humour yet all of them are substantially less attractive than you (by design)?

This may be the show for you.

Iliza is very intelligent. No question about it, she's sharp. But she has zero talent for the sketch format. Not any. I can't even call what she does here "hack." That term typically refers to tired old bits or weak material - stuff that was once perhaps funny, or "so bad it's enjoyable." It isn't. It's flat, stolid death.

The show is too self-aware and yet too self-glorifying. There is far too much winking to the audience, and what feels like endless numbers of dragging, on-the-nose meta-ironic fap-fests.

To summarize the entire subtext of the show:

"We know you know, because you should know, but you know we know you know...which we also know... #justgirlythings... Amiright? Whackawhackawhacka!!"

I just saved you 20 minutes of joyless ego-stroke.

On the one hand I feel bad for criticizing anyone for ostensibly trying to bring some joy into this very difficult time in the world. But I can't shake the feeling that she's not doing this for you or me. It's for her. It's for people that are just as self-centred; who justify their condescension and admire their own empty values. I respect what she thinks she's trying to do: represent her perspective as a modern woman defining herself through a post-patriarchal identity. But in so attempting she just comes across as entitled, pretty, petty - essentially postmodern feminine. To the extent that she is accurately representing her views, she's successful...But she forgot to be funny.

Avoid unless you just want to agree or disagree with her. Watch if you think agreeing with someone is the same as finding them humorous.

If you need to turn off your brain for a bit this is your show. Its a sketch show, these are usually bad so I would say this one is pretty good. Iliza is a bit out there sometimes and it reflects in her show. I enjoy her somewhat zany humor so I found myself wanting to watch more. A few of the skits i fast fwd through but most were enjoyable.