The good ... Comedy Bang! Bang!
Hidden away at 1am on SBS2 is the enjoyably farcical Comedy Bang! Bang! hosted by US writer and comedian Scott Aukerman (co-creator of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis). Deadpan, awkward and perfectly timed, this anti-chat show provides blessed meta-relief from the tide of men-behind-desk shows (sent up excellently by Amy Schumer), as well as existing in its own right as a petri dish of sketches and characters.
Playing the role of tortured guest on Friday was Weird Al Yankovic. Personally I prefer the episodes where there’s a straight character to play off Aukerman’s entirely unsuitable host, as with Jon Hamm in the previous week, but things are still reliably offbeat and hilarious here. The entire episode is worth it for the inventive commitment to the green screen gag alone.
The bad ... MasterChef
The opening credits to MasterChef always seem rather out of place, with their happy montage showing chefs chasing their “food dreams” at Katy Perry’s poppy behest. Really what they’re doing is suffering under the sullen tutelage of Marco Pierre White, part chef, part spirit of a Dickensian orphanage.
These shows become insufferable when they are overtaken by the reality format tropes. Unfortunately MPW is an enabler in that respect: he talks in quiet, deliberate sentences packed with dramatic pauses, making his recipe suggestions sound like a bedtime story read out by Hannibal Lecter. “Toss the salad. Season lightly. Then walk past the babbling brook to where the Gubbles live … and eat their faces.” Likewise he delivers positive feedback with all the joy of someone who has just witnessed a puppy dropped into a bucket of pythons.
Tuesday’s episode tried as hard as it could to make an egg exciting, requiring much crash-zooming on the inert little bugger which failed to do anything dramatic like detonate, or hatch into a dragon. “It’s fine!” I yell at the television. “Just show us what they’re doing and explain what it means. I’ll honestly enjoy it!” All the whip pans and pumping, nervous breakdown-inducing music made this bloody egg seem like it was the star in a movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
During the life-or-death ordeal, a contestant remarks: “It’s hard to believe cooking one egg could be so intense.” Really? You’ve obviously never watched MasterChef then.
And the soon-to-be-extinct
What could be the final series of Top Gear is currently airing on Channel Nine. Thursday’s episode saw Clarkson and friends (not a bad name if they come back with a new show: Clarkson, May and Hammond sounds like a pet food brand) ruining St Petersburg. Clarkson got behind the wheel of a hovervan and, in what could be the best televisual re-enactment of the current government, terrorised people on the water, lost all control and ended up driving through a garden and crushing a tree.
Without Top Gear we’ll now have to get by creating our own pointlessly wacky stunts. Perhaps I could hire a tractor and drive through the Louvre, or race a baby’s pram against a penny-farthing through an Apple store. Nah, it wouldn’t quite be the same without Jeremy Clarkson muttering something mildly offensive.
