In the US: Tuesdays, Comedy Central. Starts June 23
Talking of reality TV show mockery, here comes another pastiche, albeit in a somewhat different form. Imagine it’s the turn of the 20th century and the cast of Downton Abbey have been relocated to Rhode Island. Now imagine that they’re being followed by a reality TV crew and that actually, all they want to do is everything that the Kardashians get up to, except in the milieu of the time.
So we have the show’s creators and writers Natasha Leggero and Riki Lindhome playing a pair of idiotic sisters who want to be in the list of the “400 most powerful white people”, invited to all the best dinner parties and doing sexy time with that John Ritter, if only it didn’t require 20 servants to undress them all.
As jokes written down in those paragraphs, they’re quite fun ideas and knowing that both Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks and Community’s Paget Brewster are in the show might even make you want to watch Another Period. Now try sitting through 25 minutes of those jokes being milked for all they’re worth while someone does a bit of shakycam in their direction. It’s not quite so funny then unless – and this is the important part as it’s vital to understanding Comedy Central’s comedy output – you’re either hammered or stoned.
Only you know if you’re hammered or stoned, but if you’re planning on being wide awake and alert and this is on your tele, you’ll be making a mistake. You’ll titter a bit, but without a bit of a chemical incentive, big guffaws will be as elusive as Raffles.
