Tag: Tom Gleeson

Vale The Weekly season two

We’re just going to come right out and say it: The Weekly taking on Clarke & Dawe was perhaps the funniest thing we’ve seen on television this year. Not that the sketch itself was funny: oh no no no no no no fuck no. It was utterly pointless at best and bewildering at worst –... Read More »

He Only Comes But Once a Year

What is there to say about The Yearly that we didn’t already say time and time and time again about The Weekly? Bugger all, which is the problem: we tuned in hoping they might have at least tweaked the format – considering they stole it wholesale from The Daily Show – but, well, more fool... Read More »

That Was Pissweak That Was pt.2

If you’ve ever seriously wondered why television critics in this country are respected by no-one – even as television criticism around the English-speaking world enters some kind of magical golden age of relevancy thanks to the irresistible rise of the recap – may we quote Debi Enker on The Weekly: “Through four months on air,... Read More »

That Was Pissweak That Was pt.1

It’s easy to forget how charming Mad as Hell is in its refusal to assume it’ll be invited back next year until you hear Charlie Pickering say “Welcome to the final episode of series one of The Weekly“. Series one? Forgive us if we’re wrong, but at the time of writing the ABC hasn’t announced... Read More »

Nailed It Shut

Time was, the idea of having a long-running show was that you’d be able to tweak the format to improve things. Not on the ABC: after last weeks shock discovery that everyone there seems to think that How Not to Behave was a show that reached perfection with episode one, we turned our attention to... Read More »

The Weekly Week Six: The End.

This was the week where The Weekly finally decided it was time to stop carving out that rut it’s been so proud of and just settle back into it. No more tinkering with the format: everything we saw this week was old news. More importantly, the tone of the show – which is probably the... Read More »

The Weekly Week Five – argle bargle or foofaraw?

Hey, remember this? Don’t worry if you don’t recall that classic segment from 2013’s This Week Live, as Tom Gleeson kindly brought it back on this week’s episode of The Weekly rebranded as “Hard Chat”. Yep, This Week Live might have been axed due to low ratings and general disinterest, but that doesn’t mean its... Read More »

The Weekly Week Three: Week As Piss

Week three and the deck chairs are starting to be shuffled around. Gone is Kitty Flanagan’s segment; gone too the interview. In their place we get a UK correspondent fulfilling exactly the same role international comedy correspondents have been filling since satellite links became feasible, and Pickering hitting the road as a roving correspondent himself... Read More »

The Weekly Week Two: Still Weak

Do you think they’re regretting those fake news headline jokes in the opening credits? They’re not bad jokes, but they’re not classics either, and seeing them for another 18 weeks is going to take the shine off them so hard we’ll be lucky if there’s even any bare metal left underneath. Man, they really did... Read More »

A Weekly Is a Long Time In Show Business

Well, don’t we look like dickheads. There we were just a few weeks back boldly claiming that it was plain to all and sundry that Charlie Pickering’s The Weekly was going to: …make a much more concerted effort to rip off The Daily Show. You know the drill: wacky opening monologue, slightly more in depth... Read More »