We Interrupt This Broadcast

It's nice to see Oz TV investing in scripted comedy. The production values are high and nicely capture the look and feel of the various crappy tv shows being parodied. (I'm sure the crew work on them at other times)

There are some promising performers doing their best with some basic writing. 90% of each sketch is about faithfully reproducing the source, the rest of giving it a twist. Hopefully the writers find their feet in time and get a bit more creative - each punchline is visible a mile out - I'm sure it takes a while to warm up and it's only fair to remember that this is the first ep. The laugh track is painfully bad.

Update: Yeah it's not getting any better. I honestly dont know if it is a reflection on the sorry state of Oz tv that gives the writers little to work with or if it is that they have utter contempt for the channel 7 audience.

This was something I caught before another show. It was not funny, at all. Bad references, bad thought out jokes that seems like the first thing they thought of and just bad spoof ideas.

The acting seemed fine but wow this show didn't impress. And they showed an ad for the next episode, which should show the best skit and build anticipation. Instead it was an "oh we don't like you" joke. I mean seriously... There is a near endless stream of content to parody and mock and that's all they could come up with? I can do better. I just wish I got the great money those joke writers did to take a day off.

First off: it's got a laugh track. I think that's enough to explain how funny this show is - they have to tell you when to laugh to get anyone to laugh.

The references are to current media but they have basically nothing to say about them. MasterChef - someone cooks with things that aren't food. Amazing Race - but they go to Canberra. So they just frame these really vague jokes as being critiques of specific shows, when it's really just "rich and hot people in shows are over the top" but prefaced as "THIS IS A PARODY OF LOVE ISLAND", even though it is the most tame and vague thing that any show could have it said about it.

It's a skit show based on the parody of other shows. But it makes jokes about bin problems with neighbours, but puts it in a fantasy setting saying it is a parody of HOTD when it just...isn't? It's just surface level observations, or "wouldn't it be funny if this happened in the show, like if an OHS worker went to Squid Game or a killer admitted to a crime on a question asking show." No. It isn't funny.

If I have to give it anything, the performers are trying. If they had actually funny things to say then it might be better. The only funny moments I can think of are all due to the actors. But they really have nothing to do with the show. And, even if they do have a funny joke, they ruin it by driving it into the ground. The jous joke was funny...until everyone just started screaming and freaking out.

The actors try hard and some jokes are almost funny, but the poor writing and focus on making jokes last as long as they can until someone laughs is just painful. It's a show that doesn't justify its existence, and only seems to to be something for a bunch of old people who don't like current media to gather around and laugh at all these observations and exaggerations. It's not funny, but it's 'criticism', and that makes some people laugh.

The premise, flicking through an on demand service and landing on a selection of reality TV, media staples and recent(ish) trends (well recent for close to retirement rellies Squid Game and Scandi Noir jeez in a fast moving media landscape eeeekkk), as a way of feeding short wee sketches to a broad contemporary audience is a good idea.

Many of the shows whether Love Island, I'm a Celeb, Survivor, Bachelor, Stranger Things are ripe for lampooning and some of the impressions are passable - the hosts of the Block and Celeb are convincing, the SAS fella, Manu and most others are an abomination, but not wrong or surreal enough to make you laugh.

The majority of the show is so unfunny its actually kinda compelling, like how you can write such uninteresting and pointless sketch comedy in the modern world.

The whole thing feels extremely old fashioned a) whilst there are some melanated cast regulars they tend to get the rubbish role/unfunny lines in the sketch b) the same older white guy is always the love interest to young highly attractive women c) yeah the writing, which feels like the team is made up of ya Gran's mate, an extremely unpopular 12 year old & cracker/Dad joke writers (which is kinda one of the regular sketches a pastiche of Netflix comedy specials for unfunny folk)

I think the best that can be said for this is that it gave some writers, actors (calling them comedians would be a stretch) and crews some work for a few weeks. I came in at episode six, by which time you'd hope it had settled down. We Interrupt This Broadcast reminds me of some high school skits (with recorded laugh track and rather better sets) and while it takes a welcome pi5s out of "reality" TV, that's it..very repetitive. The ABC and Working Dog teams are safe in their respective production lines. Network 7 is to be congratulated for putting some local content to air, but OMG ...it runs for an hour!