Third-episode verdict: The Sarah Silverman Program

The Carusometer for The Sarah Silverman ProgramPartial Caruso

Bottoms. Ha, ha!

Flaps. Hee, hee!

Repeat for 20 minutes and you’ve pretty much got The Sarah Silverman Program. That’s maybe a little unfair — but only a little.

The show’s one of those programmes you want to like. The idea of a successful and talented comedienne not getting a cookie cutter sitcom in which she’s just the regular girl next day looking for love (cf Jenny McCarthy and Jenny, et al) is one that I applaud.

Instead, Silverman’s put together something that’s a third It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, a third Beavis and Butthead and a third concentrated Ricky Gervais. At times, it’s pretty funny.

But most of the time it’s something that, if I were 18, I would love but since I’m getting on for twice that age now, I can’t help but think is a little childish.

So for being uniformly not awful, not boring but still not that great, The Medium is Not Enough declares The Sarah Silverman Program to be a two or ‘Partial Caruso’ on The Carusometer quality scale. A Partial Caruso corresponds to a show with two walk-on cameos by David Caruso. Despite not being given one-liners by the script writer, he will attempt to ad lib his own. Fortunately, network censors delete them on quality and taste grounds, leaving behind just a vague rictus grin by Caruso before each commercial break.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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