Spun Out

I'm sure everyone reading this has already heard everything about the lurid story concerning the weird little bald guy with the fanny pack in this show (the character's name is Bryce I think, Dave Foley's assistant), the guy who played Fake Moby or Fake Dean in the awesome show Community... he (allegedly) put cameras in his apartment that he rented out on the cheap to young women and police (allegedly) found the equipment hooked up and the recording devices and believe he also (allegedly) did the same thing in his other place in L.A. Super, super creepy.

But on the bright side we haven't really lost anything because this show was no good anyway! The laugh track is super aggressive, it just looks and feels tacky and the plots are super stupid with the lamest jokes you've ever heard in your life, and every single line is a joke. It's literally like these are scripts of a 1980s sitcom they dug up and produced for some reason. So it's very dated but on top of all that they don't even do it right. It's even worse than that because almost every actor is of the quality I would expect in a high school play or maybe they just can't do comedy. I bet Dave Foley must have been drunk constantly with his coffee mug full of rum just to get through taping every day what he as a comedy legend must realize is a really awful show.

"Hey Dave." (huge laughs) "Hey Bryce." (huge laughs) "I wanted to ask you for a raise." (huge laughs) "I wanted to ask you if you forgot about my rule that you never come into my office without knocking." (huge laughs) "But I found something. (huge laughs) It's in my fanny pack. (huge laughs) (opens his fanny pack) (huge laughs). "No Bryce don't open the fanny pack!" (huge laughs)

If you think an exchange like that is super funny you will love Spun Out, but if you have a brain that is actually functioning at a level of 12% or higher, skip it and watch something else. Assuming you'll ever have the chance to watch this awful series again - which I doubt highly.

And... every character is 'the funny one'. The race to a joke is blindingly fast as each character one ups the other to a fragmented mess in the end. Lost track of the individual characters during my only watch so maybe if I give it another try, and let them assert themselves the be a payoff. Humour is there in bales but there is no time to sort it out before another is piled on.

Not good, not great and to put a twist one of the repeated punchlines during my view.

'I WOULDN'T tap that'.

Like the first time though, I think I will expect better results now that I'm braced for the onslaught.

Someone said this show is a turkey and that is the perfect word for it. It just seems appropriate to call this show a turkey. Or maybe a lemon. Nothing to see here. Just a terribly written show where the stories and characters are nonsense and none of the jokes even come within a whiff of being funny, even in a "ha ha these dad jokes are so bad it's kind of funny" kind of way. The acting is also terrible by everyone including David Foley. We shouldn't give him a pass in this just because he was in Kids in the Hall. You can see them differently. He was great in other things but this show is garbage, he and everyone else are all garbage in it. Three stars because I have seen worse shows believe it or not.

Let's first talk about what they did right. At least it looks like an American sitcom as far as technical aspect go. This is actually important, the American sitcom is a proved business model so if you want success start by not trying to reinvent the wheel. When you use cheap sets and bad lighting, sound, shooting (i.e. Satisfaction) it lends itself to being very hackneyed. Where Spun Out fails is in the writing and acting. From what I was able to discern from watching three episodes is that the character Nelson Abrams is playing a gay man. In many respects, this is the most homophobic portrayal of a gay man on TV. My reasoning is the only thing that makes this character gay is he say's "I'm" gay. Either the actor refuses to do anything "gay" on TV or the writers have never actually met a gay man. One episode had his supposed significant other completely obscured by a massive completely unreasonably large Karaoke trophy. In this same episode this gay character is worried about a female co-worker spending too much time with his significant other. Worried the same way a guy would be worried if his gal was spending a lot of time with another man. I don't know if these guys know how it works, but gay guys don't worry if their boyfriend is hanging around chicks. I'm not the first to say this, but who the hell are the people green lighting comedies this year? Do they not realize that there are so many amazing comedy writers that are waiting to hitch a ride south of the border? Stand-up comics are not always good at writing and neither are people who have resumes that feature the number of TV commercials they've been in.

The best thing about this show is that it so incredibly terribly awful, that you know that the reviews on here where it has been rated highly must have been done by publicity people.

In addition, the fact that it got nominated for some awards for the first season also tells you that the whole "award" thing in Canada is totally corrupt and it's just people glad-handing CTV.

I watched one episode of the first season and thought it was appallingly bad (the one with Jason Priestly) and then given that it was renewed I thought it must have improved so I watched the second episode of the second season - no, it's even worse, if such a thing is possible.

The only reason I give it two stars is because the wardrobe is better than average. So they look quite pretty. I find the show is best watched with the sound muted.