Contest Searchlight premiere; What the...? (spoilers)

Warning: Kind of a rant.

Did any of you guys catch this series? I’m a pretty bad Comedy Central addict, so of course I’ve been enduring the commercials for some time. They started fairly earnestly as advertising a show with Denis Leary where they were looking for new talent to create a new series. In the past few days, however, they pretty much centered around a hissy fit between Leary and one of the contestants. I was puzzled, but still somewhat interested, so when it came on after South Park, I figured “why not?”

I’ll tell you why not. It was awful. Not the show so much, but the people. It was one of the worst showings of humanity I’ve seen on TV lately, and we watch a lot of Fox in this house.

Point the first: Denis Leary, I am very disappointed in you. I liked you; ‘The Ref’ is one of my favorite comedies and I think you’re a funny, intelligent guy, if a bit too angry and bitter for my personal taste. However, in this show, you came off as a fuming, nasty, beyond bitter little nobody who is angry at the world because you’re not as popular as other comics. You don’t have a sitcom? Well, BOO FUCKING HOO, you baby! I do NOT want to hear about how angry you are that some other comics (Ray Romano, and a “fucking Mexican”) got sitcoms before you. You know why you don’t have a sitcom and Ray Romano does? You come off as a big jackass. Ray Romano comes off as a nice guy.

Throughout the show, you showed yourself to be a big nasty phony who is willing to lie and cheat in order to succeed (but, apparently, not be nice to people; no, I guess that would be too easy). You yelled at your co-host, who seemed like a very nice guy and who was trying to make peace. You got drunk at the annoucement party. You repeatedly caused arguments because you were totally unwilling to bend or to hear anyone else’s point of view. You blatantly antagonized potential co-hosts after they saw through your phony charades of how much you respect them, and how you ‘thought of them first’ for the part. You yelled at the producers. You patronized the contestants.

In short: get over yourself. Christ.

Point the second: I am very disappointed in you, Comedy Central. You showed several of your producers and other behind-the-scenes folks to be heartless, nasty little pricks who were more than happy to manipulate the kids who applied for your contest to serve your own careers. You obviously didn’t care about the project, and even said so. Why should I, the viewer, then care about the new series that you so blissfully mocked and degraded? How is it is a “contest”? The guy who “won” had his idea dragged through the dirt (to promote it?) and he was only chosen after the producers agreed that it would be completely changed and that the guy would be screwed. Nice job, Comedy Central. I’ll have to remember that before turning on your channel again. “Remember: these guys are horrible, nasty entertainment execs just like everywhere else, and by watching, you pay the salary of these jerks.”

Point the third: Why was this the premiere? It made the whole project seem like a botched mess. One of the co-hosts, Jon Stewart, walked out on the project, leaving them to scramble for someone. Everything went wrong (see above). Why should I keep watching? To see how this train wreck eventually ends?

But, most importantly, Was this show salvageable? I’m not sure. I think the concept is a good one, but they didn’t seem to put enough work into it to get individuals who were really suited for the contest. They were upset that the pitches were bad, but why didn’t they have some idea of what was going to happen?

Was anything good? Well, kinda. I am glad that, at least, their last minute co-host seems like a nice guy who is genuinely interested in the project (unlike seemingly everyone else). He seems to keep Leary in check, which is also good. I just don’t understand why this show is about Leary’s emotional problems, Comedy Central’s staff, and the background world of television rather than what the show was billed as – a search for new talent for television, and an experiment.

At the very least, it was very much new and different, as it promised. However, those things don’t make a show good. What do you guys think?

My personal belief is that Contest Searchlight is one big inside joke from the execs at Comedy Central played for us, the viewer. This was a mockumentary. A fakery. It absolutely has to be. There’s no other possible explanation for it.

Those were abysmally horrible ideas pitched. They were the kind you wouldn’t have even had a second thought about throwing into the trash, burning the trash can, compacting it into a cube and burying the rubble to escape the infintesimal possibility that you’ll ever see that idea again.

No way in hell they’d make the top 3.
No way in hell that, had they made the top 3, the presenters would be that ill prepared to actually present their lifelong dream.
Utterly no way in hell the execs at Comedy Central would show how “real hollywood” is. I mean, I love this quote: “Look, if they were really talented, they’d already be in this business.”

In conclusion, this is what Andy Kauffman would have done were he alive today.

You know, you may be on to something. (One of my chief failings is gullibility; not of the ‘Wallet Inspector? Here you go!’ variety, but of the not-being-able-to-see-a-joke-at-my-expense-if-there’s-no-reason-to-fool-me-but-for-amusement variety.)

The Jesus girl was really classic, and even a bit much, but I’ve known too many people who would act that way to point at it as obviously fake. (If the project was that disorganized, it wouldn’t be incredibly difficult to conceal the religious part until later.)

If that’s the case, Enderw24, I have to say it’s not a terrible joke, except for that they’re the ones laughing, and not the audience.