Tuesday, January 13, 2004

TUESDAY REVIEW

Rick Mercer's Monday Report debuted last night The Middle Man and Don have already reviewed it.

I am in agreement with both of them that the opening monologue was flat and mediocre. I think, however, it was more a factor of the form than the content. The jokes seemed like they could be funny but Mercer looked as if he was doing stand up rather than a news style satire. The camera angles were bad and I felt like I was watching an average comedian on Just for Laughs not Rick Mercer doing a new show.

Thankfully after the commercial break Mercer got behind a desk and the show improved. Following that things continued on an upward trajectory. Shirley Douglas boosting a car: funny. A savage satire on the holdings of the Ontario Teacher's pension fund. A rant on the state of defence spending and a 'streeter' segment in which Torontonians, including a cop and Mayor Miller, declared their city as the centre of the universe and every other part of Canada as worthless backwaters.

It seems to me that the best parts of the show were segments that Mercer had already developed in his time at 22-Minutes and the bad parts were new stuff and bad simply because it was a Mercer overload. All of this begs the question, why not just return to 22-Minutes? Does Mercer just want to be his own star? I didn't think I would ever say this, but a half hour of Rick Mercer is too much. With some more variety though the show has a lot of potential.

Posted by Matthew @ 2:43 p.m.