Ben Elton Week 2: This is it

It's D-Day for Ben Elton. Well, technically tomorrow is: the day when the ratings come out.

But it's undoubted that tonight is Elton's final chance to prove himself, mostly to viewers at home, and to a lesser extent, Nine execs, who will be looking for any promising signs.

And God knows, there certainly weren't many in Week 1.

Basically, if Elton wants a third week, at the very least, there will have to be a ratings increase of at least 100k. Its ratings were 455,000 in its first week so to equal that would be almost remarkable.

So, let's be realistic here and analyse this question; does Elton even have a snowflake's chance of pulling that off?

We all know that the show was pretty bad in its first week, and the media certainly knew that too. The press and reaction was almost universally negative.

So, keeping that in mind, we can look at these factors in terms of its possible week 2 ratings.

Retention rate: People on twitter also panned it, so you'd have to imagine very little would tune in week 2.
However...

Those who peruse the news sites would have seen Elton state he got the mix wrong and there was too much smut. Of course he wasn't completely repentant, but this would have won him at least a touch of respect and brings at least some intrigue as to how the show has changed.

Of course, this will only bring in a small percentage of those who watched last week, let's say less than 50%.

Word of mouth: This will be almost all bad, so I wouldn't expect too many new sets of eyes. However, it does play into the car-crash factor, as in so bad that you have to watch. Don't expect this to be a huge element though.

So, you'd have to say that Elton's only hope is that people will be forgiving enough to give him another shot.

My post last week, "Bye Ben", wrote his show off after ratings last week. So Elton was smart in pleading his case to TV Tonight and Jon Faine in the week- but really, it was his only hope.

But still, it will be interesting to watch tonight. For mine, it would need to be about three times as funny (if it can be measured) to keep this viewer watching next week (assuming..., etc.).

I don't think it has the potential to be, based on last week's show, but I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

But let's face it, even turns out to be brilliant (look at Micallef Tonight), in the cold light of day, no show can be saved from the swinging axe known as the ratings.

Review: Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth

The Bounce, Let Loose Live, The White Room, You May be Right, The Nation, Hamish & Andy, Micallef Tonight, The Matty Johns Show, The Mick Molloy Show, Warnie.

I could go on.

All of these shows have cropped up on our screens over the past decade. And all are infamous for one reason; they were axed because a)Ratings were paltry or b)They were pitiful excuses for comedy.

Sometimes they were a combination of the two - actually, far too often they were.

They are also unique in the way that they were not axed because they petered out towards the end of their run.

No, they are all textbook definitions of "flops", axed after two or three episodes. Sometimes they were allowed to complete their run of 13 episodes of so (in the case of the Nation).

No, commercial networks haven't exactly had the most success in creating a successful comedy, light entertainment or quiz program.

Over the past decade, one could only point to Rove (and its various iterations), Spicks and Specks and Talkin' 'bout Your Generation as genuine success stories.

Not exactly a great hit-rate.

So why on earth would Nine take a risk with yet another live, or as-live comedy?

Well, maybe it was because Nine believed they had a hit on their hands.

Well do they?

There was quite a nice opening riff on the absurd classification system in Australia. Oh-Kay...

The monologue involved some fairly topical gags about Julia and the floods.

Yet jokes about spam and "knob"-size were fairly run-of-the-mill stand up comedy fare.

And calling Tony Abbott a "dickhead" will always be a crowd pleaser.



If one has an issue listening to Elton's English accent commenting on Australian issues, just think- one wouldn't have a problem with a person of Indian descent, or Italian descent commenting, so why should this be any different?

In case you have an issue with a "Pom" hosting an Australian show, it's actually more representative of  Australia than anything else on TV - maybe we can soon graduate to maybe someone of different ethnicity hosting something on commercial TV.

But that's a topic for another day.

Back to the real "comedy" of the show.

[caption id="attachment_107" align="alignnone" width="590" caption="The two Ja'mies- I mean schoolgirls. You see, it's not ripping off Lilley because THERE'S TWO OF THEM."][/caption]

I really enjoyed the schoolgirl and upper-class wine swillers... The first time they were done on Summer Heights High and Kath and Kim.



And fake Hollywood reporters... why do I feel like I've seen this before?

[caption id="attachment_108" align="alignnone" width="590" caption="I think it's got to the point where actual Hollywood reporters are funny than the people mocking them"][/caption]

And then came a "sight gag"... that lasted for far too long.



Sorry.

And OK, we get it, some female bodybuilders look masculine. If this show is cancelled, don't they know that will be shown on 20 to 1, Great Hits and Misses.

Or Today Tonight in two weeks time.

However, the one saving grace throughout all this was the surprising brevity of it. That will make it easier to chop segments such as the "fat chef".

Oh, and in case you didn't get the joke: THE CHEF WAS MEANT TO BE MATT PRESTON. YOU KNOW, FROM MASTERCHEF? HE'S FAT.

Oh, and in case you missed that visual gag, he was called THE. FAT. CHEF. Yep, that's what we're dealing with.

[caption id="attachment_105" align="alignnone" width="590" caption=""I was really glad I managed to make the Fat Chef fart." Cutting. Edge. Comedy."][/caption]

You know when you've been beaten to a joke- and a one dimensional one at that- by Sam Newman that it's time to push the panic button.

However, before anyone had the chance to turn off, along came one Genevieve Morris, a manificent character actor probably best known for her rendition of Barbara from Bankworld.



Her character, interviewer Elaine Front was an absolute winner and threatened to steal the show from Elton himself.



And while I had hoped the live sitcom would introduce some new characters- some that weren't so over the top and caricaturistic. All the acting was top-shelf though, with Veronica Milsom reprising her role as Lady Gaga from Hungry Beast (maybe it'll lead to a gig on Saturday Night Live in the US?).

And The Mick Molloy Urinating on Set Award goes to the actor who played Amy Winehouse.

"I'll just run a comb through me minge."

Yes, "contemporary" comedy is apparently making as many crude jokes as possible, without the actual humour of actual pioneers in this area such as Judd Apatow and his range of adult comedies.

But once again the criticism isn't that it wasn't unfunny or cringeworthy, it's just that the most obvious joke was used in every case.

Then followed an insensitive "public school teacher". That's about all that you need to know.

[caption id="attachment_104" align="alignnone" width="590" caption="Asian students were called things like "Ain't-shit". Oh, I think I forgot to mention that this sketch was RACIST. Silly me."][/caption]

But by the end Elton had almost won me over with his brand of stand-up- quick, outrageous rapid-fire comedy. It's about time we got a grumpy
old man, of sorts, Let Loose on TV. We have had a cheeky Rove for ten years after all. I could get used to it.

At the end of the day. It's an Australian production employing talented Aussie actors and comedians. It's also live and very slick- usually a hallmark of Nine productions.

The show's not achingly funny, but who expected it to be on the first night? And how many shows are, anyway.

Hopefully they have got all the fart jokes and other easy jokes out of the way in the first show, so that we can see some genuinely new material.

Though not live, The Wedge's main weak point was its inability to come up with new characters. Its initial range of characters was funny, yet they were done to death.

If Planet Earth begins introducing new characters and utilising the full range of its talented cast, it could take off. If it remains exactly the same as this week's show, then don't bother. After all, we've seen all these characters again and again (and now again), we know all the jokes.

And the Australian audience deserves better.