Have the production staff ever seen a late-night show?

I appreciate that TV does not cater to one audience. I understand that there is room for shows like Louis and 2 1/2 men. I accept that. What I don't get is how a show that doesn't have minimum production values like Brand X gets to the air.

Well the show starts off with some invented controversy about Russell Brand. Ok, I thought, maybe we'll change topics from this pretend incident regarding the Dali Lama.


Nope. The entire show was based on the Dali Lama 'controversy' without any real insight into religion or society. Well, he also talks about himself. A lot. Even comparing himself to Malcolm X, his first joke, which did not get laughs (a sign of things to come).

Most shows, to prevent boredom, have a monologue that changes topics. Also, that monologue is generally only a few minutes, not the entire friggin' show.

Seriously. There wasn't even a sketch, a guest, a band, a monologue of current events. It was almost as if Russell Brand threw it together that night, and only had a photo of the Dali lama and an invented controversy by his publicist.

And it wasn't even tested material!! The audience was almost completely quiet through most of the show, not even giving pity laughs. I felt sorry for the audience being held 'comedy hostage', especially the poor lady whose lap he sat in.

There's maybe 3 'jokes' that aren't about the Dali Lama, and they are incredibly lame. "These 5 anarchists look like a homeless boy band." WTF? Ignoring for a fact that Russell Brand looks more homeless than they do, when was the last time boy bands were relevant? 1999? Then there's some crack about how Brand enjoyed Apocalyptico, a movie that came out more than half a decade ago. Wow. And, let's not forget, a Charlie Sheen reference; a blatant ad-push for Anger Management, which also premiered that night.

Then there's the assistant, who has got to be the most uncomfortable sidekick I've seen on a talk show. He looked embarrassed, and who can blame him as he has to be on camera pretending to laugh at Brand's 'jokes'?

Occasionally Brand forces pseudo-philosphy into the show, like about consumerism being a religion in the USA, but he's so phoning it in, and it's incredibly shallow. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles teach you more about the renaissance than Brand does about philosophy.


Certainly there have been bad talk shows over the years. Chevy Chase's comes to mind. However, there were at least some production values to it. The was semblance. It looked like it had some planning. And most of all, it looked professional. How was the production of a show messed up at such a basic level for Brand X?





I am eyesbick-1. Prophet of the IMDb Moderator Gods.