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Recap: 'The Wanda Sykes Show' (with photo gallery)
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The Wanda Sykes Show
I have to be upfront and say that I am not a huge fan of Wanda Sykes. She can be funny at times, but I've always found her style of humor to be too scattered and pointlessly aggressive for my tastes. So I'm not sure that I'm the best person to review her new Saturday night talker "The Wanda Sykes Show."
But hey, it's my job, and while the first episode of any talk show only offers a glimpse at the show will eventually become, I have to say that overall, I didn't hate the show.
Yes, I know, that's not exactly a quotable comment, but it's an accurate reflection of my thoughts on tonight's show. There were some good moments and a few solid laughs. But there were a fair number of dead spots as well.
The job of talk or variety show host is much misunderstood. It's not enough to be funny or memorable or even controversial. It's not enough to just perform. You have to connect with the audience in a way that is really difficult to define. But audiences know it when they see it. It's what made Arsenio a great talk show host and Jon Stewart a lousy one.
And based on tonight's premiere of "The Wanda Sykes Show," her lack of connection with the audience might be the biggest problem with the show.
The episode began with a lame Ann Coulter spoof that for some reason chose to target Coulter's eyelashes as the central punchline. It was painfully dumb and given the fact that they've had weeks to work on the prepared bits, it wasn't a segment designed to fill audiences with optimism for the rest of the show.
The first ten minutes of the show was essentially Sykes delivering a monologue about the critics of President Obama. There were some funny lines, but the delivery of Sykes didn't help the material. She was either reading off of cue cards at times or was just so nervous that her delivery became wooden and stiff. Despite having a wide stage to work with, she remained planted in one spot, wringing her hands as she delivered the jokes. Based on what I've seen in her stand-up specials, it's not her natural delivery and it didn't do her or the show any good.
Sykes then spent a few minutes with longtime friend Keith Robinson and then waded into some pop culture and current events humor with a segment called "Wandarama." The jokes were hit and miss, but it's a segment that does show some promise for the future.
One consistent flaw of the premiere was the prepared bits, ranging from badly-executed Photoshop jokes to a long taped sketch about recycling sex toys that managed to take all of the titillation out of dildos and scented lotions. Having someone wear a t-shirt that says "I only munch recycled carpets" is the type of juvenile humor I would expect to see at some freshman college Improv show. Not as part of a network series with some otherwise funny writers and performers.
Luckily, the second half of the show was much funnier. Although the fact that Sykes had much less participation in the segment might have had something to do with it. Sykes was joined by "Brothers" co-star Daryl 'Chill' Mitchell, "24" star Mary Lynn Rajskub and "Amazing Race" host Phil Keoghan. Everyone sat around a newsdesk and discussed topics such as whether spanking your child was a good idea. They also played a couple of games, including an odd one called "Know You Asians." That game included an increasingly tasteless (and funny) conversation that ended with Keoghan looking at a photo of "Stargate: Universe" star Ming-Na and saying "She's got a flat ass and she's not friendly. She must be Chinese."
In the end, having the quartet sitting at a long table/desk doesn't work, but otherwise, it was an often funny half-hour. Everyone got in some good riffs and jokes and they all seemed to benefit from drinking throughout the segments. The audience got to see someone like Keoghan in a different light and it's always good to remind folks that Mitchell is a funny guy. The roundtable idea is a good one, and if anything, I would move it higher in the show rundown.
But as I said at the top, while I didn't hate the show, I'm not sure that I would watch it on a consistent basis. I'm not convinced that this is the best format for Sykes and while I really enjoyed the panel segments, the taped and prepared jokes were pretty bad. I'll check in again in a few weeks to see if my mind is changed, but for now, it's back to watching local news and "Saturday Night Live."
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