Why we were so disappointed with 10 O'Clock Live

"Satire is comedy in a journalistic format - but 10 O'Clock Live couldn't decide whether it was a sketch show or panel show"

This show made me a little sad. I love satire - The Daily Mash, Have I Got News For You, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Bremner Bird and Fortune and even Mock The Week...all great pieces of television that combine great comedy with great debate. If you know these shows then you'll hold the genre to high regard and if you take an interest in social media then you'll have expected 10 O'Clock Live to be something more engaging and interactive for the Tweeps and bloggers at home. You may even have considered it a vessel for the blogging world to get into mainstream TV. But sadly, Channel 4 had a night of hit and miss humour that will take a long time to remedy.

So what did we actually expect? Well we want comedians to ask the same kinds of questions we expect from journalists. We want to see the funny side of news items and to have a joke about a current topic to share with our friends and colleagues and we didn't get this from 10 O'Clock Live. Instead, we saw our favourite comics and satirists delivering cringe from a forgettable set surrounded by what may as well have been a laugh track.

Mitchell

We saw David Mitchell grab what laughs he could from serious topics. He seems to be growing desperate as he constantly interrupted and yelled points over the table. Later in the night though, he did calm down and actually made the logical, rational points on the subject of student tuition fees - the kind of banter that make him an amazing live comedian but this was too late for many.

I'd have loved to see David grilling someone in a true Question Time way - not fed by tweets and viewer submissions (David doesn't need that) but just fed by his own experience and quick wit.

Carr

Jimmy is a funny guy. He didn't need to yell over anything when he did his Tunisia bit - awkward laughs and a "is that it?" response from Twitter. It's hard to make light of any situation in a laugh-out-loud way and Tunisia is a topic the British people don't really know about. In UK satire, we always prefer to see our own public figures belated and we were forced to force a laugh for a story that affects a great few of us.

Jimmy talking to the camera is when he's at his best. I'd have loved to see him fire out some great one liners about all the week's topics and not dig for jokes on one topic in an embarrassing "travel" section. 

Brooker

Some tweeps expected a Newswipe style from the show but I would disagree. Charlie is fantastic at preparing material but his Sarah Palin segment was interupted by laughs - causing us to miss his little afterthoughts that go beyond the initial punch line. Remember - Charlie doesn't write for a live audience. There is no "pause for laughs" for Charlie. 

He even seemed to be annoyed by his co-presenters at the round table segments - causing viewers on Twitter to show their sympathy. But Charlie is the ideal person to have on a panel - and I'd love to have seen him and David Mitchell going head on head to represent opposing views while Carr perhaps shared audience and viewer insights.

Laverne

We don't know this girl - is she a sketch comic? Stand up? Can she write? We were introduced to her as a live comedian and we were disappointed. She became the mediator of the evening - the only one with an eye on the clock - but when she contributed, we found ourselves feeling very awkward. "It's a good thing she's quite hot" comes to mind.

If she's going to do anything, I'd say she should play it straight. With such comics around her, she could be the one that gets to bounce the punchlines. If she were to "play the part" of the typical female news reader, the advertised format of the show might work better.

Overall

Overall, I think the ads we saw on Channel 4 and throughout the satire communities of the Daily Mash and Twitter led us to believe that we'd see some kind of mock TV show. The obvious hilarity of The Daily Mash meets the comedy panel show - dipping in and out of debate, interviews and in depth reports. There's talent in that crew but there's just one question they really need to answer before trying again - what IS the show?

 

Ask yourself - how would you describe this to a friend who didn't see it?