It’s the Movies that Got Small
There’s only one question when it comes to Rove’s new comedy panel game show Show Me The Movie: is it as shithouse as Cram!? Unlike Cram!, this one is actually about a topic that isn’t just “you know, stuff” – people generally like movies, most people know some dumb facts about movies, and as this reminds us repeatedly, there are already a shitload of terrible parlour games that are in the public domain that they can base the show on instead of coming up with something people might want to watch.
It’s also hosted by Rove, who is most definitely a better host than Peter Helliar. The jokes are terrible, the cast are… Angela Bishop is on this so *makes vaguely disgusted confused gesture*… but at least with Rove running the show there’s a bit of energy to proceedings. Remember when he went to the USA to replace Jay Leno? Best joke of his career.
Australian television networks clearly don’t want to give up on the idea of television just yet, but as the future for them is clearly going to be advertising-based reality television and sport they don’t want to put too much effort into actual programming either. Which is what makes shitshows like this so frustrating: if they really wanted to make a comedy show people would enjoy, they’d have run as far from this as they could.
The set looks like it cost five dollars, the movie facts are a half days work for someone with a working internet connection – seriously, an entire segment about iconic roles actors turned down? – and the panelists are… Paul Mercurio is on this so *makes vaguely disgusted confused gesture*. They even had a final “Speed Round” where the joke wasn’t that all the questions were about Speed! Jesus wept.
Nine’s started running promos for the return of Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation, which is pretty much the only successful Australian comedy quiz show since Spicks & Specks. Rove isn’t as good as Shaun Micallef but he is as good a host as Adam Hills, which suggests that perhaps the way to go with this show might have been to create a more intimate, messier, nerdier movie show featuring comedians and team captains that were actually real movie fans rather than just people who’ve seen movies.
But then they wouldn’t be able to have segments where they a): show the trailer for a new release movie, b): proceed to answer questions about what was going on in the trailer, then c): cut to Rove interviewing the star of the new release movie for all of 90 seconds while weirdly sitting alongside the star like they were both in the front seat of a car. Guess that advertising-based reality television future isn’t as far off as it seemed.
Still: officially better than Cram! Whoo-hoo.