Another Shane Madej-conceived show on Watcher Entertainment (along with Puppet History), Weird (and/or) Wonderful World with Shane (and Ryan) follows Shane and Ryan as they visit various interesting locations and interview the people there. Ryan, Shane and Steven Lim, all of Buzzfeed fame, launched their Watcher channel this year. So far, Puppet History is by far their best show. The others, like Ryan's Spooky Small Talk, seem to show cheap productions (heading out to nearby attractions) and talking in an often unenthused way. Hopefully, next year Watcher will rethink itself, and launch more whole-hearted, real quality shows like Puppet History.
Weird (and/or) Wonderful World is a little like Spooky Small Talk and suffers some of the same problems. It is, however, better. That's because Shane picks more interesting locations and talks to more interesting people, like the actress at the Shakespeare theatre and the proprietors at the Mystic Museum. There are some great, outrageous scenes like the seance with the alleged ghost of Alfred Hitchcock. If the Mystic Museum proprietors were faking it, they had some good working knowledge of Hitch's personality. Other episodes, like the Pie Hole, are completely lackluster.
Ryan and Shane show great chemistry that made Buzzfeed Unsolved a hit, though we don't see that dynamic here so much until the soda episode, when Shane takes a mildly-but-not-quite critical remark from Ryan as an excuse to launch a revenge plot. If we get more of this usual Ryan-Shane double act, and more interesting locations, Weird (and/or) Wonderful World could have a solid second season; otherwise, I wouldn't mind if it didn't come back.
