From r/television: A Personal Review of Drew Barrymore Show, (extremely uncomfortable)

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/u7fuu3/a_personal_review_of_drew_barrymore_show/

Watching The Drew Barrymore Show is best described as a painful experience. It's obvious that Drew has no idea what she is doing and neither does the audience. Drew’s exquisite lack of chemistry between her and her Guests, along with her feebish juvenile additude make for a perfect cocktail of soul-crushing cringe. The Drew Barrymore Show, is like a bad spout of diarrhea, that will leave you feeling empty, uncomfortable, and constantly disappointed.

The show is described as this: “Drew Barrymore presents human-interest stories, celebrity guests, lifestyle segments and field pieces, all driven by her infectious brand of humor and optimism.”

Nowhere in the show does Barrymore’s supposed "infectious brand of humor” appear visible whatsoever. It’s not that the jokes are not apparent, it's just that they are terrible and few and far between. Every laugh from the guests feels alarmingly forced, Drew has about as much comedic wit, and charm as a Soviet propaganda poster.

Furthermore the main topic of every episode of Barrymore is as the title suggests, Drew Barrymore. The show seems to have been designed by a teenage girl that only covets the validation of complete strangers. For example, when she has Jennifer Aniston on, Drew takes her on a tour of every place she’s either been to or lived, in L.A. None of the places have anything to do with Jennifer Aniston. Most of the time Jennifer Aniston is doing more interviewing than Barrymore. It is almost incredible, you have to actively search for where Drew asks a single question not pertaining to herself. Barrymore’s self-absorbed delusion is so bad that it is simply off-putting, and has the remarkable ability to make you very uncomfortable.

The skits on the show are half-baked, and seemingly written by someone who has never interacted with a human before. like everything that Drew does on her show it’s devoid of everything that could even be categorized as “entertainment.”

In one portion of the show Barrymore plays a made-up character called “Mitzy Bananamore,” a spunky old lady with a sassy attitude with her segment “The Button Club.” I cannot say what she based this "Mitzy" abomination off of, but it just doesn’t work. Of course she does interviews in this character, which for once actually involves a little bit of substantive questioning. But its ruined by the fact that she wears an obnoxious outfit straight from an estate sale. She dons a big cheap wig, and talks in a half-assed accent. It is both unoriginal and lacks any sort of genuine charm. As a result the guests are also uncomfortable, with a constant “what the fuck is she doing” smile pasted on their face. In addition, whatever "jokes" she makes does little to ease this constant tension. It's odd, extremely discomforting and it makes your skin itch.

One episode of Dear Drew she brings on Rajiv Surendra, who is best known for playing the instantly recognizable character “Kevin-G” from Mean Girls. Nonetheless, Unlike any successful show, where the guest is called out on stage after the introduction. Drew instead forces Rajiv to sit through her nonsense. After finally introducing Rajiv she subjects him to about 5 minutes of her opening fan mail. Drew has what she calls the “Zip-code of the day.” Where she selects a random zip code, in this case Rolly, North Carolina, that conveniently is the home of their “affiliate Fox station.” She then just starts spouting off touristy crap about the city, and Rajiv is sitting there with nothing else to do then to force a tired smile on his face while just clapping whenever the audience claps. Honestly, the show’s premise is so lazy that it's almost genius.

Then just when you think that maybe Drew can somehow relate all this debauchery to her guest, she subverts our expectations by making it about her again. She opens her first letter which contains tie-dye socks saying “ooo I am a tie-dye sock enthusiast.” Of course she behaves like a juvenile and claims to be "obsessed" with tie-dye socks, which doesn’t seem to be inaccurate considering she’s dressed like a Raggedy Anne Doll.

Then, just as you think the unbearable awkwardness couldn't get worse, Drew forces Rajiv to read a letter from her fan mail. As he reads the letter his discomfort is so opaque that his voice is trembling.

If that wasn’t bad enough, adding to this dumpster fire of an interview is the clumsy looking set. The set looks like some kids show. There are two, rather imposing desks and this Rajiv guy is already pretty small, especially when he is sitting behind a caricature of an elementary school teacher's desk. You literally can only see his head and shoulders and the rest of his torso is covered by a cluttered and inane desk.