Debuted on SyFy night before last. I DVR’d it and watched last night.
I wanted to like it. I am a huge fan of Tabletop, the Geek and Sundry / Youtube web series in which Wheaton and celebrity guests play through a tabletop board game.
And…
Meh. It was billed as “Talk Soup for Geeks.” I thought it was amateurish – frankly, if I saw this episode and an episode of “Tabletop,” I would have been hard pressed to guess which was the Youtube venture and which the cable TV prime time show. The audience laughter felt forced. There were some funny lines, yes, and some pithy observations. I’d watch it over, say, “Real Housewives” any day.
I don’t have cable, so my opinions don’t matter to the powers that be anyway, but I’m sort of MEH on seeing it also.
I love Wil as a person, and Tabletop is great, and I’m glad he’s getting the chance to do something cool and fun and somewhat less niche than his usual - but I don’t really follow pop culture (geeky brand or not) because of said lack of normal tv, so I don’t know that I’d really enjoy seeing a bunch of jokes about shows and actors that I don’t know.
Which is sort of disappointing because I’d like to support his projects, but it is what it is I guess.
I’ll give it a try on hulu or online over the weekend, but I’m not holding my breath that it’s going to be up my alley.
I watched and most of it went over my head. I’m marginally aware of the popularity of comic books turned into movies, I’ve heard of Game of Thrones, and I recognize some names as belonging to actors, so I knew he was making jokes that those in the know would get. Neil DeGrasse Tyson drunk and stoned was kinda cute, and there was another bit that I laughed at, but I don’t remember what it was. Maybe when he gets more comfortable in this role, it’ll be better, but I don’t know that I’ll stay up to watch it any more - it was an effort for me to be up that late - I’m a morning person.
Warhol’s “in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes” has already come true. I think we’ve moved to “in the future, everyone’s grocery lists will be famous for fifteen minutes.”
I’ll continue watching but yeah, what Bricker said. The first half was very rocky. I took that as first time jitters. Some of the refereneces went over my head and some of the “us nerds finally have a show” comments rang hollow, since that is completely untrue. The second half I got some good belly laughs.
I just watched it on Hulu, and yes, there are some kinks to work out. I think they got the loud audience laughter idea from Talk Soup, and it needs to die. And he’s a little uncomfortable addressing the camera as a host. But both of those can be fixed. I like Wheaton a lot and I’m always interested in people talking smack about nerdy pop culture things.
Echoing the first two posters. I’ll keep watching, because I have hopes that it will get more polished. I really wish Wil would stop overselling the jokes, though. The cheesy grin/thumbs up at the punch lines can be funny in small doses, but not every five minutes.
It’s not a good sign when I keep checking the time, hoping there isn’t much more. It’s an even worse sign when this happens only 10 minutes in.
I like Wheaton, and I wanted to like this show. But he seemed uncomfortably self-conscious and too self-congratulatory about jokes that really weren’t that funny.
I’ll give it another chance, and I’m trying to be optimistic.
One thing I’ve noticed about Wil Wheaton’s @tabletop videolog series is that when he interacts with other people he’s hilarious and fun to watch; but when he does the initial set up and acts as host, he comes across as completely awkward. In those moments he seems to be Wil Wheaton acting as though he’s Wil Wheaton.
Wheaton and my favorite funny sexy nerd, Chris Hardwick, are good friends and former roommates and have good on-air chemistry. I think they should have a show together.
What everyone else said. It had its moments, but was kind of rough. I was never too into Star Trek but I like Will Wheaton from his appearances on Big Bang, so hopefully it’ll pick up a bit.
Yeah, I love Wheaton but also thought it was just ok. I’ll keep DVR-ing it, though, at least until there are two other shows in that timeslot that I want to watch.
(Sidebar: I told my TiVo to only record new episodes, but I guess SyFy isn’t providing enough episode metadata because it thinks that every airing is a new episode. Last night I had to delete 3-4 repeats and clear out my “to record” queue. If that doesn’t stop, I might cancel the Season Pass.)
I will probably continue watching the Syfy series, but I was disappointed. I like Wil Wheaton a lot, but parts of the show were marginally annoying (especially the canned laughter). I would rather see Wil in a more relaxed mode with less smirking and mugging.
I had that problem as well with my Dish DVR. Episode number is showing as N/A for some reason, so it’s not understanding that each show isn’t something new.
It is a Soup clone but does not work as well because the host just isn’t up for it. McHale (and Hardwick) are standups and can pull off the jokes without looking awkward. Wheaton could not. I hope he gets better.
