Thank God Your Here itself is a cool, inventive idea. Gather a group of C List actors and comedians and force them into situations requiring them to think on their feet while performing an improv skit. The only problem is that the entertainment of the show solely relies on the actor's ability to improv. In some cases the performer has been able to think on their feet and create a really entertaining scene (like Shannon Elizabeth, Chelsea Handler, Bryan Cranston, Fran Drescher) however there have also been the performer's that aren't very good at thinking on their feet and just sort of go with the flow instead of taking control of the scene and guiding it to funnier places (Tom Green, Tom Arnold, Joel McHale). I would definitely recommend you take a look at the show and decide for yourself, it's a show that can be really funny at times.
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kyle-loves-brooke18 February 2008
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SnoopyStyle11 September 2013A weekly improvised sketch game show that features four celebrities as they walk into a live sketch without a script. The only thing they can count on is the greeting from a fellow actor in the skit, who proclaims upon their arrival, "Thank God You're Here!" Based on an Australian show.
This is truly a hit or miss show. The biggest factor is the performer. They need someone with a quick mind, experience doing standup, manic energy, and a willingness to be inappropriate. There aren't that many great ones around. When it's funny, it could be hilarious. But there're just too many unfunny sketches. -
bologna43 May 2007Thank you Tracie Oakley for providing us a review with absolutely no substance. But wow...with that Alpo joke, maybe YOU should be on the show! I bet it would go over great.
Seriously, I watched this show once and chuckled quite a few times. Would you rather be watching "Will & Grace"? If so, then you probably would NOT like this show. It is a different type of humor...a BETTER type of humor. Sure, these are NOT masters of improv, but that's what makes it so unique. Watching them mess up is part of the fun. Those that do not see that are missing the point entirely. Kinsey was the only one who actually created a character for her bit, and it went over so-so with me because it seemed she was trying too hard. I also liked the video bits where they took the best parts from each of the guests and spliced them into one montage.
Also, props to the regulars on the show, who did an admirable job. This show definitely deserves to be on the air a little while longer, or at least as long as "Whose Line is it Anyway?" -
briegner28 July 2011As a big fan of both Whose Line series (UK and US), I decided to give Thank God You're Here a try. I watched 3 episodes before I finally gave up on it completely. I give credit to the comedians and actors who volunteered to be on this show, and David Allen Grier didn't do too badly as host; but overall, I really couldn't stand it. I think I was put off most by the unknown supporting actors because they would repeatedly violate the first rule of improv: ALWAYS SAY YES. They would contradict the contestants over and over, forcing the scene to play out according to the script. That is not improvisation; it's just frustrating for the contestant and off-putting for the audience. Dave Foley never had anything interesting to say to them at the end of the scenes; he might as well not have been there at all. I have no idea what the Australian or UK versions of this show were like, but the US edition was pretty bad.
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SPOILERS
Even though this is not as good as I thought it would be I still had a blast watching it. The premise is very original, well, if you do not count Whose Line Is It Anyway? Anyway, I was hearing very good reviews. TV Guide and other magazines like that gave it a very good review and said it was great. I watched it, and it was good, but I do not think it lived up to the hype. That does not mean you should not watch this, it is very fun and enjoyable.
Here is the basis of this show. A couple of celebrities and comedians go on this show to perform a skit. Easy, huh? Wrong! They have to ad-lib, or improv, every single line that they have. They also have no idea what the skit is about. After the skit is over a judges says if the skit and the acting was good. There are a couple of skits in each episode. At the end of the episode the judge says who was his favorite performer. That performer will receive a Thank God You're Here plaque.
Overall, this is a pretty good and fun show. I like the fact that people you would not think perform on a show like this actually perform, like Monique, who won the second show. Still, not every skit is good. Some are cheesy and weird, but most are good. In fact, more than one-half of the skits are decent. Still, there is at least one bad skit in each episode. Anyway, this is an enjoyable show to watch but I still feel a little empty.
8/10
Recommended Shows: SNL, Mad TV. -
vertigo_1425 April 2007With NBC's "Thank God You're Here", the network may be trying to replicate the successes of ABC's improv sitcom, "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" in which host Drew Carey would judge the performances of a handful of cast regulars asked to improvise scenes of some kind. In the NBC show, Dave Foley and co-host Dave Alan Grier oversee a handful of notable comedians who must improvise their way through various scenes which all begin with "Thank God You're Here." It takes itself far too seriously (why must viewers be repeatedly reminded that the actors have never seen the sets before), both co-hosts seem less then enthused. After watching the continuously sub-par, unfunny attempts by the actors to solicit some laughs, I am left wondering whether the live audience is genuinely laughing at what transpires, or whether they, too, are improvising. Expect this time slot filler to be a very short-lived one.
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silvy69625 April 2007Get the right actors/actresses in there, and it's funny. Harland Williams, Kevin Nealon and Wayne Knight were my favorites. Some of the other stars didn't do improv so well...they might wanna screen some of these people first...
Brian Cranston and Tom Green did okay, although I think those two went over the top. Chelsea Handler and Shannon Elizabeth did a pretty good job, too, but there were moments of "non-funnyness" in their performances.
The other performers I've seen so far just didn't do well in my opinion, but I think the show is definitely worth watching just so you don't miss those classic performances like with Harland Williams. -
productofgonzo12 May 2007This show is terrible. I cannot get over the complete waste of great talent this show contains. This is not entertaining improvisational acting, it's just a cheap attempt to throw someone famous comedic actors onto a stage and have them perform a poorly improved scene. I have actually done improv work as an actor, and this show is not improv.
What the audience is actually laughing at (if they're actually laughing at this show at all, it looks quite fake) is the embarrassment of the guest star being lost like a deer in headlights. The dumb, completely unrelated things they come up with are what people laugh at. And if it's not part of the scene, the actors will tell them that it's wrong! I find this show is disgrace to the art, and makes me cry for shows like Whose Line is it Anyway, which had great talent, great improv games, and on top of everything else, didn't make me want to change the channel. -
djandymarc19 October 2007Before you take judgment, do yourself a favor and try and get a copy of on the Aussie shows as the show has gone to its 3rd season here, and was that successful that you guys bought the concept from us. The Aussie version is absolutely brilliant. Yes granted there have been a few episodes that were a little ordinary but usually its hilarious!!! I am really keen to see a version of the US show on comparison. I'd seriously doubt that they will use the same skits etc.. and maybe thats why you guys there don't seem go enjoy it as much as us!! You cant compare it to Who's line is it anyway either. Yes, The shows are both based on improv but honestly its a lot easier improvising a line as opposed to a whole scene.
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uhhuh4730016 April 2007THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE is painful, positively painful. The title is apt, in a sense, if aimed at the large studio audience paid to laugh like they were watching the second coming of the Marx Brothers. And trust me, they are paid.
As creatively barren as the entertainment industry has become, I refuse to believe that NBC brass really have faith in this turkey. Rather, I think THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE is what all of you get who didn't watch, or didn't appreciate STUDIO 60, which previously graced the peacock network's Monday night lineup. You want to turn your nose up at caviar, fine. Here's some lovely Alpo direct from Menu Foods for you to slop around in. -
maerrie13 January 2008It's a real shame that the US show seems to not work that well. In Australia we've had 3 seasons with possibly a 4th on the way and it just keeps getting better.
If any of you can, get yourself a copy of the original concept show because it's really amusing and such good value. Granted some of the guest stars fare worse than others, but on the whole it's a blast to watch.
I guess there could be a cultural aspect to its (comparative) failure in the US because Aussies have a pretty unique sense of humour which is sometimes not shared by other "westerners". -
RNMorton15 April 2007(Based on 1 1/2 viewings of one episode) Well-known comedians hone their improvisational edge in skits, the catch being they don't know the situation they're thrown into until it happens (at least that's the deal). The show I saw featured Wayne Knight (Newman), Brian Cranston, Jennifer Coolidge and somebody else I didn't know offhand. The "supporting players" (as it were) were all fine and the premise worked very well (despite the lead comment here). I've never been a Dave Foley guy and just don't get his role on this, they should figure out some other way to critique or reward the comic (audience meter with money to a charity? whatever) I think this works a little better than Who's Line Is It, there's more needed structure to the comedy. The comics I saw all did very well extemporizing. Nice start.
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vanquish202010 April 2007Seemed like a great concept, even if it was borrowed from another country. But a great concept doesn't equal a great show. The improv done here is horribly unfunny and amateurish. Jokes repeatedly fall flat because they just aren't funny on any level. It's just a bunch of actors that were funny on other shows because the humor was written for them. Put them in an improv situation and they are lost. The show was painful to watch, I would avoid future episodes like the plague, unless they can bring in some actual comedians.
Oh and Foley and Grier are doing their best to pretend any of what they are witnessing is the least bit funny, but even they are failing miserably. -
liquidcelluloid-124 June 2007Network: NBC; Genre: Remake; Reality, Comedy, Game; Content Rating: TV-PG (some suggestive adult content);
Season Reviewed: Series (1 season)
4 performers who walk through a door into a set they have never seen and are forced to bluff their way through a scene they know nothing about, all the while try to avoid being tripped up by the regular cast. With a premise imported from Australia, "Thank God You're Here" promises a free-for-all comedy playground. It could have easily been so much fun.
"Here" is, at best, only as funny as that segment's guest and given that most of them are actors and not comics that is more often than not, not very funny. Some of the players (or victims) are well known sitcom stars (Wayne Knight, Jason Alexander, Wendi Malik), some improv masters (Fred Willard disappoints but Jane Lynch steals the show) and some - like the receptionist in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" or George Takai - you've got to wonder what they're doing here. However, Takai is a real hoot as a doctor who walks through the door and gets a jump on the first line. Bryan Cranston proves he really is more talented than the final seasons of "Malcolm in the Middle" led on. Some, such as Lynch and Eddie Kaye Thomas, are almost able to create a character in the few minutes before Dave Foley hits the buzzer to put them out of their misery.
But then there are those performers that are grating to watch. Mo'Nique, "comedian" Shannon Elizabeth and set-destroying Tom Green do their usual tiresome lowest common denominator acts. "Here" never exactly hits comic brilliance, but with these questionable talents on the set treated just like everybody else the show becomes downright insufferable.
As always, Foley (fresh from celebrity poker commentary) is fun to listen to as judge while David Allen Grier is in look-away, full-blown family-friendly cartoon mode. Is Foley free to poke fun at this show or is he really exorcising frustration over a contractual obligation. I don't know and that's why Foley is so good. The regular players (including "Significant Others" Brian Palermo God, I feel for him) are often funnier than the guests.
Some of the set pieces are clever in concept, some of them are not. Mostly it is set up like a theatrical Mad-Libs requiring the guest to complete sentences ("The three S's of success are ") or spontaneously make up a song and dance. Throw actors in a situation like this and (without Wayne Brady in sight) you are bound to get results that aren't always pretty, but most here are cringingly unfunny in an "America's Funniest Home Videos" sort of way. As "Videos" made notorious, "Here" uses frequent shots of an audience that is either euphoric to be in a real TV studio or lubed up on a great warm-up act to tell us that it is supposed to be funny. But for me is only mild amusement in seeing a celebrity sweat or stare out at the crowd blankly as they've just been tripped up by a line they didn't expect.
"Here" is one of those shows that exists in a Hollywood bubble; the bubble in which actors are patting each other on the back and assuming if they are enjoying themselves, than you out there in flyover country must be too. It is so amused with itself, so free to wink and nod at it's own camp and frivolousness that it never tries to be anything better. As I watched I just constantly wanted more. I wanted it pushed further. Edgier or funnier or more sophisticated. Just more on every level. It is Drew Carey in "Whose Line is it Anyway?" telling us that "the points don't matter" all over again. By God, why don't the points matter? Why is there nothing at stake? And if not, why should I watch?
½ / 4 -
KUAlum2619 May 2007Actually,I must say that this show is,for me,somewhat of a tonic. It's comedy,improv with a twist,played in two parts:one(the more obvious part)as a staged laboratory of unscripted performance,the other part,in taped segments,as a sort of "warm-up exercise" meant to sort of jog the guest actors into the mindset that would best suit them for the show. I've watched the better part of six of the seven episodes so far and I(to chime in with another reviewer)see some promise to this program.
Basically,what to me holds this show together(which,to be brutally honest,despite its promise would bog down immensely if the right people weren't brought in to anchor it)are the host,David Alan Grier and David Foley,who acts as a judge of the performances. Both are comic pros who are able to keep the events moving smoothly and sometimes inject the right needed amounts of observational humor. The invites to the show range from the choice(Jason Alexander,HArland Williams and Bryan Cranston come to mind)and the woefully over-their-heads(George TAkei and,shockingly,Tom Greene,from what I saw)and can sometimes make the promised product of the show sag,and I suspect that the newness of the concept of the show,paired with the unevenness of the players and the skits they're paired with are right now the stumbling blocks this how has for it at this juncture.
While a show like "Whose Line is it Anyway?" may have a more authentic feel to it in terms of improv comedy,I still feel like a show like this is an interesting--and sometimes truly very funny--exercise in seeing how actors can readjust their mindsets to keep an audience affixed and laughing. I'd like to see more of these shows and see if and how they improve. -
rachaelasullivan3 June 2007What is your problem? For one of the first times, Australia has come up with an extremely innovative idea. This show is not terrible whatsoever. This show displays creativity of the scenes provided and those who cannot see that are obviously not true actors. This show was meant for the entertainment industry which is exactly what it does, you yourself implied that the audience enjoyed the show by laughter which even if it is out of pity for the actors embarrassment, the show is still fulfilling its intention of entertainment. Explain why exactly you believe this show does not show improv? It clearly does BECAUSE a) the actor/actress is in an unknown environment which they have to adapt to therefore IMPROVISE into and try to make it seem that they were meant to be there. and b) because the other actors belonging to the show are also a high distraction to the comedians which they also have to 'dodge' past and improvise around.