This show could have been great. The Joan Rivers film, "A Piece of Work," was fascinating. So a true reality show centered around Joan and Melissa Rivers could have been very exciting. But what we have here is a sitcom premise and canned sitcom situations. Unfortunately, this new show is ALSO not a sitcom! What we have is an hour long improvisation sitcom that no one bothered to make funny. The fake reality show premise actually works against the jokes that are actually there. As her feature film showed us, Joan spouting jokes on the fly is funny. But the obvious fakeness of this show is distracting when we are told it is supposed to be "real." Melissa especially is saddled with having to spout lots and lots of dumb expository dialog that no one in real life would ever actually say. The episodes are just one dumb sitcom gimmick after another, all sucked of their potential humor because the producers were too lazy to even try to make their fake scenarios actually funny or to take the chance on showing real "reality."
They could have saved it in one of three ways: 1) done a true sitcom with the same premise--but scripted so that it showcases Joan's talents and is ACTUALLY FUNNY 2) or, done an honest Mockumentary a la Christopher Guest and employ a supporting cast of talented improv actors--so that the show would be ACTUALLY FUNNY 3) or done a TRUE DOCUMENTARY, TRUE REALITY show, which might have been both ACTUALLY FUNNY as well as interesting
Instead they pussied out and created a bland pile of nothing that does everything wrong. FAIL.
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