Thank The Lord For Your Presence # 4

Last night saw the fourth episode of Thank God You're Here (TGYH).

Is it just me, or is this show already losing its edge?

Hopefully it was just an off night, or perhaps I was simply a little tired when I watched it (although I thought that'd only improve my viewing experience). I dunno what it was, but returning guest stars Angus Sampson & Peter Rowsthorn, and new special guest stars Santo Cilauro & Robyn Butler (the latter two predicted by yours truly in my post three days ago) seemed less-than-hilarious.

I think somehow we were missing the Frank Woodley / Shaun Micallef "loose cannon" / "professional ad libber" element. Robyn was really no better than Fifi Box, although granted, Angus and Santo didn't let her or Peter get much of a word in during their group scene at the end, there.

Santo even reverted to the script from an old Late Show sketch about the Drive Thru window for a Catholic church! It was almost verbatim! I'm not for a moment suggesting that he knew in advance what would be coming and looked up the old scene's dialogue (although he is one of the writer-directors of both shows), because I've done some acting in my time and I know how the dialogue from a much-loved scene can stay with you for years - particular if you were the one who wrote it - but it strikes me as odd that he decided to "go there" and consciously re-hash old material. Didn't he think anyone would remember? It was almost word-for-word! I certainly noticed!

Santo's solo scene was okay, with him not sure whether or not he should be making moves on the woman in the bed attire (he was playing the role of a plumber), but by the time he got around to deciding either way, the scene was almost over. The actress didn't give him many clues, though. I (like Santo, I'm sure) expected that if he made a suggestive comment, she'd embarrass him by making it clear he had the wrong idea. Santo also has a bit of a tendancy to talk and stutter over everyone else's lines (and he always has), so the actress in this scene (as well as everyone else in the group scene) had a hard time getting their lines out on occasion.

Peter did a great job of science fiction spaceship captain (putting one in mind of - but staunchly omitting any reference to - Star Trek). His crooked hand and off-handed commands to his crew members to "put them in the beta quadrant and let's get out of here" made me laugh.

Robyn had excellent set pieces (including big copies of a movie poster hanging from the walls, advertising the fictitious film, A Time To Die (or something like that) and featuring her face - I wonder if she got to keep one?), and amusing questions being asked of her by the ensemble cast at her 'film actress' character's press conference, but she failed to do any more than just barely keep her head above water. There was basically no initiative shown here. She didn't go above-and-beyond at all.

Angus probably did the best job of the night, closely followed by Peter, but they'd both appeared on the show before, so maybe it gets better/easier with practice. Angus' scene was as a DIY hardware store manager, being forced to fire a female employee with whom he has apparently been intimate. He went out on a lot of bizarre tangents in this scene, but at least he wasn't just reacting to what was thrown at him. Like all the best scenes, he made his own stuff up as well, and forced the ensemble cast to have to think on their feet too, in order to fit his material into the scene and yet keep it moving forward (which is the whole point of the show - and most of the fun).

Angus' work in the group scene of four Catholic priests sharing their brainstormed ideas with the head priest on how to get children back into the church (no crass puns, please) was easily the better of the four (if you exclude Santo's pre-prepared - by about 12 years - material as described earlier). He was walking around, pouring them all drinks, throwing in some updated prayers in "Snoop Dogg" language, and listing his parish as being "online". I'm glad he won (although I also could have coped with it going to Peter for his spaceship scene if necessary).

Again, the less said about Tom Gleisner's stupid judging comments, the better. His poor puns ("We have lift off") just destroy the show.

This episode marked Angus' third time on the show, so I'm beginning to wonder if the agreement they all have is to appear on three shows each, with a guarantee that the appearances will be mixed around enough to enable them all to be the 'winner' once each. If I'm right about this, Peter Rowsthorn will have to win the night the next time he appears on the show, because it will be his third (and, by that reasoning, last) appearance.

I guess we'll see if there's any truth to this theory next week.



.