The interview with Masha Gessen was cut - which actually highlights why I don’t like this show. I like Shaun Micallef, and I liked Newstopia. I feel that Newstopia was better because it reflected an actual news program - the set and the live audience / canned laughter does not reflect an actual news program. I feel like this was an awkward mix, that didn’t make sense.. and also seemed kinda out of date. If you like Shaun Micallef, you will obviously like him in this show.
But the show, the characters, the writing - lacks courage. And I know that sounds like utter wank, but hear me out.
This is how I would make this show better, but essentially I’d be steering it away from the classic Micallef TV show outline, so I understand if you all hate me.
The show is called Mad As Hell - but lacks passion and gusto. To be honest, I wanted/assumed there was going to be more venting, that kind of heated back and forth discussion on the news of the week - when I say venting I do not mean unscripted.
The characters are disposable, I’m not sure how many will be recurring but it doesn’t matter, because they’re not that memorable anyway. Firstly, I would be devising individual characters for each actor and working on a defined personality for them. Shaun Micallef can keep his persona, and even in the interview with Masha Gessen, he wasn’t full on, but it was still interesting and funny and new.
Next I would bring in a dumptruck full of reality and just dump it on this show.
I would have the actors interview real people, people on the street, politicians at press conferences, celebrities at the airport, while staying in character - Gunston style. This counts as courage. I would have Micallef interview Masha Gesson, and other authors, politicians, media personalities, anyone from the news that week at his desk - in front of an audience. Script it, fine, just allow it to have real people. If you going to have actors playing bloggers - turn it up, be more outrageous, or something. Make sure we understand that you are doing a parody, so that when Micallef interviews real people we know, and when he interviews a character we know. Boring parodies aren’t funny, and they’re not really parodies either.
The set was too… I don’t have a word for it, it was nice, it looked like a smaller version of TAYG, and it didn’t look like a news parody show set, really, at all but just buy a real chair for guests, I’d let all that slide.
The cutaways were fine, the ad parodies - fine. Create some segments. Beware of skits that appear to be overly offensive, and stupid. The show should be intelligent, and appealing to the lowest common denominator is not intelligent. Keep the central theme going - a news parody show shouldn’t have a random skit that lacks the structure of an interview or news segment, or any newsworthiness.
That’s probably it.
