OK, so we've all had a night to stew on the Joy of Sets...
The show itself was a unique beast - at least in Australia- as there has been no show with so much critical acclaim, and the biggest madly devoted cult following, as that of Get This (or the team of Tony Martin, Ed Kavalee and the late Richard Marsland).
This show was almost never going to live up to expectations, and even I admitted that mine were unreasonably high.
And yes, it was an uncomfortable sprint from beginning to end, and for fans who loved the longer-form FM radio format of Get This, they would have found the unbelievably scripted nature of the show constricting. Part of the charm of Get This was the (perceived) ramshackle feeling of the show.
But in getting all that out of the way, for a pilot of a fairly newish format (let's face it, it's basically the love-child of The Gruen Transfer and TV Burp), it was bloody fantastic.
I can honestly say that this half-hour of TV was the best thing I had seen on Australian TV all year - I know that there isn't much competition, but the mere fact that the show didn't treat its viewers like idiots (see: Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth) and wasn't a carbon copy of another successful format (The Renovators, anything else...)
Now again, I'm not saying it was a brilliantly funny first go, but it did not disappoint, which is pretty high praise from someone with already lofty expectations.
However, on a side note, I should address the format again- many people are saying that giving it time to bed-in will allow it to breathe a bit more, but the fact is, Tony and Ed have already filmed 5 or so episodes (correct me if I'm wrong), and the pacing is likely to be just as brisk- especially given the fact that the eps ain't getting any longer, and you can't accuse Tony and Ed on being light on for material (they've only been off air together for close to four years) so they'll want to cram as much stuff as they can in.
But this isn't a massive issue- in fact, for many shows, too much material would be a good problem to have, and you have to forgive the pair (both have experienced the fickle and brutal nature of the commercial broadcasting world) for trying to give it their absolute all.
Most importantly, the main thing I hope comes from this show - assuming it gets to air all of its episodes (which, at this stage, is looking fairly likely; as much as people have lamented the fact it has aired on Channel Nine, at least they have given them a go, and at this very moment in time, getting a leg-up on the back of the much talked about Two and a Half Men reboot is the best chance at success they could get), is that Tony and Ed get free reign to build their own show from the ground up. As good as Andrew Denton's production company is, they all start to look a bit the same after a while- they're either edgy, controversial or a bit insightful (or a combination of the three), and please don't mention the opening titles, which, while nice and dinky, induced cold sweats as I remembered the opening titles for the man who haunted many of my dreams many a year ago.
While it's a good format, I hope it's looked back on as being a successful launch-pad for a long career at Channel Nine (I know how unconceivable that may sound, as the words successful and long wouldn't exactly be commonplace around the non-existant halls of Channel Nine anymore), but hey, if it can happen to Shaun Micallef at Ten (someone who seems similarly boxed-in to a format to an even greater degree), surely it can happen to these two.
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