The Downer Channel

This show had some of the best belly laughs outside of THE SIMPSONS on network TV.

Some sketches were stupid and felt like filler (the rule of thumb on comedy shows) but some bits were so inspired you couldn't believe they were on NBC.

This show died too soon--it was totally worth the time you spent on it.

If you like TV that's not dumbed down, try to find these episodes.

You won't be disappointed.

This show is awful. I can't say awful enough times. The previews for this show made it look as tho it was the funniest show ever made, but I watched it the other night-and wow this stuff is bad. This is the oddest humor I have ever seen, and I can't imagine anyone finding it funny. As far as I have heard, almost everyone hates the show, and I have to wonder, how did this ever get on tv in the first place? There is SO much great tv that gets canned without a chance (Freaks and Geeks for example), yet garbage like this makes it on the air at all, it amazes and shocks me! NBC is becoming the worst channel on tv, and I don't even watch it at all anymore. I used to watch NBC all the time, but it definitely losing it's crown as king of the networks. This show is horrible...Spy TV is a gem compared to this show, and that means The Downer Channel HAS to be awful. .000000000001/10--is that possible?

This show is pretty funny, but it's different; a sort of man-on-the-street, guerilla-comedy, sketch-comedy, variety-comedy, sort of show. The only reason the reviews have been mostly bad is because it's different; if you give it a chance, the show is actually pretty funny, especially Jeff Davis and Wanda Sykes.

I know from the things that they have done earlier, that the members of the downer channel are all very funny. Steve Martin was involved, and the it was brought to me by the people who brought me 3rd Rock from the Sun, and That 70's Show! This show, as a sum of the parts going in, should be funny.

But, for the most part it isn't. Instead of making it a pure skit comedy show, it turns into a "concept show" where they interrupt skits with slips of people complaining. Not only does this interrupt the flow of the show, it makes it so the skits are really only :30 second blasts of silliness.

Another problem is there are too many writers for the type of show it should be. It should be a skit show, so it should be written primarily, if not completely, by the members of the troupe. You can tell that there is a distance between the actors and the writing, something that shouldn't happen in skit comedy.

It does have funny parts, though. I just wish they could hold on to them for the full half hour.

I loved this show. It was too bad they made so few episodes. It was the kind of humour you don't see much of these days, where sad and maddening things happen to people and they just have to take it on the chin. This is definitely comedy for the little guy. It wasn't so much sketch comedy as a collection of short movies. There were no recurring characters as far as I remember; perhaps they would have appeared over time. It reminded me somewhat of the Ben Stiller Show, in that both were quite short lived and quite sophisticated and full of promise that never got a chance to develop. I don't know if we'll ever see this on DVD and I've never seen it rerun. Too bad.