I enjoyed it immensely. I know I was laughing more than my fair show through both episodes. Aisha is a wonderful host, her laugh is infectious, and the regulars are every bit as funny now as they always have been. Colin and Ryan are definitely starting to show their physical age, but there's nothing wrong with that. And Wayne Brady... well, I don't get the criticism he's getting. If anything, he's simply shed the "whitest black guy ever" image and embraced himself for who he is. That skit on the Chapelle Show went a long way to helping with that, too. The one criticism I agree with is the "random celebrity" bit. While seeing Lauren Cohen being used as a toboggan made me happy in my pants, it really did detract from the fourth improviser. Especially the episode with the guy from Glee who was trying too hard to contribute rather than just being the prop he was intended to be. Just awkward and uncomfortable. I much preferred it when they pulled someone from the audience whenever they needed another participant. I guess they were trying to recreate the awesomeness of Robin Williams' appearance a while back, but that's just not going to happen with it being a regular thing. Or not having someone like Robin Williams doing it.
The last season of the ABC run had tons of gimmicky guest appearances: David Hasselhoff, Hugh Hefner, Florence Henderson, and of course Richard Simmons among them. Then there was the contortionist, the gymnasts, Miss America, and so on. Unfortunately the producers have seen fit to continue this trend, possibly because the feedback on lots of these appearances was very positive. If it's one per episode, it's certainly gonna be over-used, and make the fourth chair actor even more superfluous. Heck, for some reason they put WAYNE as the alternate with Lauren Cohan in "Living Scenery". For a non-speaking role where you basically just jump in as a prop when prompted, they coulda used the fourth chair. I just hope that when a classic audience participation game like "Sound Effects" comes along, they'll stick to using the audience as in the past. Or at least Ryan. This show's formula is at its best when sticking to the four casted improvisors, the host (and their banter with the cast), plus audience volunteers. Everything else, from Drew jumping in on games to the various gimmicky guest appearances, is IMO little more than sprinkles on the cake. This latest version has plenty of sprinkles. However, the show musn't forget we're here for the yummy, delicious, improvised cake. Mark
I wasn't aware of that. I'm not against them, in fact in both the British and American previous versions, I was excited to see them and Colin in the cast. Greg Proops also. I thought I heard him mention that he was going to be doing the show on his podcast, but I can't find any thing on-line to back that up. I'm not against guest stars, I just didn't like how they were used in these episodes. I didn't mean to imply it was done on purpose, it was more of an observation. Never having been to a taping, I'm admittedly naive about how it's filmed. I guess it does make sense for there to be more that's edited.
As previously noted, on ABC they filmed for 3-4 hours and got at LEAST 3-4 episodes out of it, versus the UK version where they filmed 2-3 hours for ONE episode, plus an extra game or two that made it into a clip show at the end of the season; also ABC later went back and got at least one more episode of less-than-stellar material from each taping and aired that (without additional pay to the actors). Upon rewatch of the new episodes, I somehow get the impression that they may be shooting in shorter blocks and using a director / editor who was looking for a little continuity in the material, adding in callbacks to previous games. I agree though that there are likely games that were cut that will be made into a separate episode or two down the line. Looking up Laura Hall on Facebook, she further notes that the stuff that is cut or edited out includes multiple takes of games like Hoedown (which Colin noted in that Skype interview they only did once or twice, to the cast's relief). Laura says that in a typical Hoedown each actor will do at least a couple verses, not counting the ones they can't make it through; editing takes care of the rest and makes it appear that they get the perfect verse right out of the gate. Other games like Greatest Hits will have Wayne doing five or six songs, but we only really hear two or three... On ABC there was indeed a later episode which had the identical intro from Colin and Ryan ("Songs of the...") but Wayne singing completely different numbers to the theme. Strange but true. Mark
Yeah how ABC treated the show was crap and Drew Carey called them on it. He said just because his show was fading doesn't mean you throw another show he does under the bus. Craig Ferguson makes fun of ABC all the time, and jokes it's why everyone now works for CBS.
Renewed for 24 more episodes... http://tvline.com/2013/07/29/whose-line-is-it-anyway-renewed-season-2/#more-449319