My wife Andrea and I have been sampling a show on Amazon Prime called The Goes Wrong Show, a British comedy series about woebegone efforts of the fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society to put on a play for television.
Each episode is about how the society attempts to produce a play which is beset by plague of horrors involving missed cues, malfunctioning props, hastily re-written scripts, last minute cast changes and whatever else can go wrong in a live play.
One play is about a murder trial. The big problem facing the cast is a courtroom set that is too small. It's like the tiny Stonehenge debacle in This Is Spinal Tap but done for an entire room. The judge, barristers, jury and defendant are all hunched over tiny tables on tiny chairs.
The Goes Wrong Show comes from the same theater that created the Broadway sensation, The Play That Goes Wrong.
I have not seen The Play That Goes Wrong but Andrea and I have seen productions of it's spiritual cousin, Noises Off. Noises Off is about the production of a sex farce called Nothing On where by the final act, every damn thing that can go wrong goes wrong. Each production Andrea and I have seen of Noises Off has been a riotously laugh out loud event.
The Goes Wrong Show provokes a similar reaction as I find myself quite literally gasping for air as the Cornley Society's latest play of the week goes completely and horrendously wrong.
Keenan
Andrea and I decided to give Kenan Thompson's new sitcom a try.
Kenan Thompson is Kenan Williams, host of a popular morning show in Atlanta called "Wake Up With Kenan".
The morning show gives Kenan Thompson a chance to channel some of the wacky comedy we've come to know and love from his long tenure in Saturday Night Live.
But all is not well behind the goofball facade. Kenan is not processing his grief over the death of his wife. He is in a constant state of denial. The stresses of not accepting his wife's death ultimately spills out into his TV work where during a breakdown, Kenan Williams manages to offend working moms, stay at home moms and Beyonce!
Insulting Beyonce? You need to step back, bro.
Kenan Thompson does show surprising depth and nuance as his character slowly begins to crack the shell of his denial.
Jeopardy
Last week, Ken Jennings finished his run of 30 episodes as guest host. Now we begin a run of various guest hosts.
And quite frankly I'm not looking forward to that.
I had no concerns that Ken would drive the Jeopardy into the ditch, leaving the legacy of Alex Trebek in shattered ruins. But I am surprised by just how quickly and completely I accepted Ken Jennings behind the host podium.
All these other people coming in for their turns as guest hosts may have their own charms and talents to bring to the role. But over the last 6 weeks, Ken Jennings has stepped up in a way I never thought possible to earn the right to be the heir apparent to Alex Trebek.
Alex himself was adamant that the host is secondary to the show and to the contestants. I think this rotation melange of guest hosts undermines this concept and pulls the focus away from the contest and the contestants.
I hope when all the dust settles on these guest hosts, I hope the announcement comes quickly to confirm Ken Jennings as the new host of Jeopardy.
WandaVision
Do you know how everyone has been speculating that Wanda Maximoff is not completely in control of her Westview utopia?
That Kathryn Hahn's Agnes might be involved?
And that Agnes might be Agatha Harkness from the comics?
Well, you know what?
Let's have songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez explain it!
I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!
DAMN!
And that is that. Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to keep it down, will ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
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