This show is trying so hard... It's trying so... So hard...
It's good that we are getting political satire back on television. And it's a shame, because the voice actors are great and the puppets work for what they need, the problem is the writing.
This is the least subtle show I have ever seen. 90% of sketches follow this formula:
1) Have character come on screen and call out their 1 character trait (E.G. Eric Pickles is fat, so he comes on and demands food or Lady Gaga wears silly outfits, so she's talking about where she is going to get her next silly outfit)
2) Build up to a joke
3) Tell joke
4) Proceed to beat the joke to death by shoving it in the audiences face in a "DO YOU GET IT YET?!?!?" MANNER.
This show lacks any form of subtlety. I hate relating this to Spitting Image, because it's what everything else does. But this show really needs to take a read from their book. Your characters walk in, they build up to a joke whilst taking small jabs at similar topics, then they tell the main joke and then they leave it. That formula worked.
I mean, one sketch I saw was pretty much a solid minute of "Eric Pickles is Fat" jokes, with maybe a "Ed Miliband has big teeth" joke thrown in. Come on, anyone that knows about comedy knows that you don't stand about for a solid minute going "Wasn't that joke funny? It works on so many levels!"
And for the last time, dropping the F-bomb is not a joke in and of itself. You use the F-bomb to emphasize the main joke.
