One of the worst episodes of Mock the Week I've witnessed.
There were some highlights. Andy Parsons is for my money the underrated panellist and has only gotten better over the years, and there were some crackers in the Scenes We'd Like to See round from Hugh especially, and a few from Russell and Andy.
Now, the bad. Single handedly the worst guests ever, in my opinion. Jack Whitehall is probably my least favourite panel show member on any panel show bar Jamelia. He is not original, doesn't have strong material and rarely raises a smile from me, I cringe everytime I read he's going to be on something I'd like to watch. I really, really want to like him but just can't. Jarred Christmas I've never found funny on anything I've seen him on, albeit not a lot. He didn't impress me, didn't add very much at all. Nik Rabinowitz was a new one for me, and the worst of the lot, perhaps he was out of his depth, I don't know. He was loud and unfunny, not to mention borderline racist.
The thing that's beginning to annoy me is Dara laughing at the jokes that are just quite poor, it seems like an incredibly forced laugh, but I can understand why he does it.
Mock the Week really used to be unmissable TV. I'm not on the whole Frankie is God campaign, and while it was inevitable that he would be a huge loss, it doesn't account for the turgid mediocre pish that this episode was.
For my two cents on improving the show:
- A permanent panellist on Hugh's team would be very welcome. People have mentioned David Mitchell or Ed Byrne, I'm all for that or someone else.
- Have more input from Hugh throughout the show, he only seems to come alive in the last round.
- Have Dara tall more jokes at the end of the round, 8 Out of 10 Cats style, he's a funny bloke.
- It seems to be going this way, but don't make Russell Howard the star of the show. He worked perfectly as the kind of child like opposite of Frankie, but he's been a lot more irritating over time.
- Give more screen time to Andy Parsons. That's my opinion, I know the opinion on him is divided, but I'd say he has the most consistent material on the show.