Let’s review the history of this show. It began as Talk Soup with Greg Kinnear and Jon Henson. It left and was brought back as “What the?” with Joel Mchale, name eventually changed to The Soup.
Ran a long time as The Soup, but was canceled. Brought back on Netflix as The Joel McHale Show With Joel McHale, but was again canceled.
It’s back…again. On E! again and called The Soup again, this time hosted by Jade Catta-Preta.
Did anyone else watch it? It was not bad. Clips are as funny as ever, but I think it takes a long time to learn how to quip/host this show. The new hostess was only OK.
Anyway, I’m glad the show is back on because without The Soup, I have no idea what garbage is on TV. I consider The Soup my only way of being informed of the bottom barrel of TV.
The Joel McHale show on Netflix didn’t have the same feel as the Soup. Probably because it is not a binge watchable show.
Anyhow, the new Soup is good, and the new hostess will need to find her groove, but I am willing to give her a while to get there. I wonder if the writers are the same or if they have a whole new crop?
What I liked about The Soup was that they showed the weirdest and funniest bits from all of those reality shows, like the ones with the Kardashians or the ones with the Alaskan gold miners. So I was aware of who all of these people were without ever having to watch those horrible shows.
I thought the new episode was good but not great. The best thing about the McHale episodes was how effortless he made it seem – he somehow projected a feeling that nothing about the show, including his own performance, mattered at all, and yet it worked perfectly. I don’t expect that’s the kind of feeling and tone that will come immediately, so hopefully the new host will make it her own.
I have the same question about why E! cancelled The Soup. Not expensive to produce, and according to Wikipedia, averaged 683,000 viewers in July 2013. Not a huge number but these are the day when viewership is highly fragmented.
I was a huge fan, but in my recollection, the McHale version of the Soup seemed to be getting old by the time it was canceled. The same shows and the same jokes kept coming up, and the shows had come to know that they were under this scrutiny. Hopefully the break and the revamp can freshen things up.