Last Last Comic Standing

I’m not sure why, but I watched this year’s version of Last Comic Standing. My LCS partner checked out after last year, but I love comedy and was up for it again so I checked in. But this has got to be the last time. It’s not that the comedy was awful, although it was pretty poor, the show format defied any sort of explanation: logic, entertainment, snarkiness. Lots of preliminary comedic “challenges,” comics performing at car washes, at the playboy mansion, in Bed Bath and Beyond. But none of these lunacies were really had any impact on the outcome of the competition. Three, count ‘em three, actual challenge “competitions” and performances saw one of two (and one immediately eliminated) female comics perform three times. And then it was over. “America voted” and then, even though the votes were in the remaining seven performed again. After they’d after they’d done their best two were sent packing based on a vote that had nothing to do with the routine they’d just performed. Then there was a “finale” – ninety minute snoozefest featuring Jon Lovitz and Triumph the Insult Dog who performed with exceedingly poorly attended continuity (cigar in the mouth, cigar out of the mouth, eyes askew, cigar dropping out, oh hell what does it matter anyway). Repeatedly the two hosts stood like popsicle sticks trying to figure out what to do, three times they told one of the lined up comics they were eliminated. Then down to two, they took 15 minutes of air time (including a five minute commercial break) to announce that the winner was the woman who’d survived three challenges. The first female winner of Last Comic Standing. But it’s hard to imagine anything more anti-climactic. After they reminded us of past winners, including the mediocre Jon Reep and Josh Blue, it was hard to imagine this winner making anything of this terribly choreographed “opportunity.” The best winner, Alonzo Bodden, wasn’t even included in the role call because the year he won the show was cancelled after the penultimate episode; the audience didn’t even get to see the winner. Not a good sign. The format is altered every year; but a fix has been elusive. The elusive format does nothing to create either a following or any desire to appear on the show since there’s no way to know what you’ll be asked to do. Shrinking audience, bad comic contestants. No reason to watch.