Unwatchably bad. It's like aliens saw that one joke the Youths had for a while where they would refer to the NSA agent assigned to reading their post and then tried to make it the premise for a clip show for some unfathomable reason. It's so bad I decided to review it, and I don't usually review things. I just needed to decompress after this nonsense.
I have watched many dumb clip shows for background noise, lack of other channels when I was a kid, or time-wasting purposes. I've seen them all, from America's Funniest Home Videos to World's Dumbest to Most Shocking. This is the worst. Easily. There is not a single level this show works on. Let's break it down.
1. The mild nihilist humor in the original joke, talking to the NSA agent assigned to reading one's internet material, cannot support a comedic premise. It goes from mild nihilist humor to tasteless. I'd almost say it's mean, but it's just too bland to be mean. It is just not funny to see a guy be like "Yeah I'm running the NSA, I ruin lives and it's fun!"
2. The clips are poorly shown. Often, they're run several times, or parts are run again. This is fine when you do it right. This is not fine when it just adds dead air. Also, nothing seems to be cut from any of the clips, so I find myself often wondering what the clip is even supposed to be before whatever finally happens. I understand you need more time for the jokes, but sometimes there's no jokes, the cast seems to be wondering what's going on too.
3. The joking about the clips? AWFULLY paced, weird tone. The tone of the jokes is that of three people hanging out and joking about dumb videos. This is fine when it's you and your friends. This is fine when it's MST3K. It does not at all work in this situation. In a way, it feels like I'm just looking in a stoner's bedroom as they and their friends watch Youtube. There is, as mentioned, random dead space. There is a LOT of people just laughing at each other's jokes while you just... wait for them to finish laughing and move on.
4. The jokes aren't really funny. Some are amusing, many fall flat, and there's nothing to take the edge off when they fall flat. The other comedians laugh either way. And they really need to pay attention to each other's jokes, because I'm not convinced they always hear them before they laugh. There was a clip where each of the three comedians said a minor variation of the exact same joke in sequence. It wasn't that funny the first time. It was agonizing the third. The comedy varies really wildly too. There's like one or two moments where they hit a natural groove and seem to legitimately react to clips in the way a human would and those kinda work, I guess? But boy are they rare.
5. This is the single worst part, and nobody else has mentioned it: The host segments. Thinking back to MST3K again, they have host segments! MST3K's often contained some humor. These do NOT, holy god. They bring the show from bland and dull to physically painful.
The host segments are worth breaking down further, because they're what convinced me one of the writers might be an alien.
The first episode's host segments involved them giving one of the protagonists(?) ransomware from... a review form for NSA branded soda that tasted awful? And then the protagonists did a parody of a "hacking sequence" that would have been amusing if the rest of the show wasn't so horrible. It turns out the NSA did this on purpose to see how good the ransomware was, and since the interns cracked it, they were going to fire someone in Encryption. The joke is that the NSA head loves firing people and ruining their lives! Then he drinks the soda and comments that it tastes bad. The credits are over outtakes of him saying the soda tastes bad. None of them are funny.
The second episode is where it goes off the rails and I think the alien was given writing credits. The newest intern has to take her first "randomized employee test". It could be literally anything and there are ominous consequences if she fails! So the other two train her by having her do exercise while answering random questions and getting shot by like an airsoft gun. Sitcommy, not at all funny. She gets to the test and it's being delivered by a robotic voice on a computer. The overlong "joke" while she authenticates her identification is that the NSA is super intrusive and even knows her overly detailed worst fear. The actual test is "what color is this square?" It's red. She's passed. It randomly cuts to a past evaluation of one of the other employees. The identification is a call and response of a Spice Girls song that also goes on way too long and was not funny to begin with. Then it just... goes back to the present I guess? The other two ask how her evaluation was. She says she aced it. They're shocked! Nobody aces it on the first try! Not since that one guy who works in Misinformation now, confusing people about whether or not coffee is healthy. She says "I always wondered if coffee is healthy!" They say "Exactly." That is the end of the show. Over the credits, the new employee watches a video of geckos licking water off a leaf while drinking a glass of wine.
I watched because I was stunned and confused. It is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen, and not in an entertaining way. Studies should be done on this show. You could really learn a lot about what not to do from it.
I have watched many dumb clip shows for background noise, lack of other channels when I was a kid, or time-wasting purposes. I've seen them all, from America's Funniest Home Videos to World's Dumbest to Most Shocking. This is the worst. Easily. There is not a single level this show works on. Let's break it down.
1. The mild nihilist humor in the original joke, talking to the NSA agent assigned to reading one's internet material, cannot support a comedic premise. It goes from mild nihilist humor to tasteless. I'd almost say it's mean, but it's just too bland to be mean. It is just not funny to see a guy be like "Yeah I'm running the NSA, I ruin lives and it's fun!"
2. The clips are poorly shown. Often, they're run several times, or parts are run again. This is fine when you do it right. This is not fine when it just adds dead air. Also, nothing seems to be cut from any of the clips, so I find myself often wondering what the clip is even supposed to be before whatever finally happens. I understand you need more time for the jokes, but sometimes there's no jokes, the cast seems to be wondering what's going on too.
3. The joking about the clips? AWFULLY paced, weird tone. The tone of the jokes is that of three people hanging out and joking about dumb videos. This is fine when it's you and your friends. This is fine when it's MST3K. It does not at all work in this situation. In a way, it feels like I'm just looking in a stoner's bedroom as they and their friends watch Youtube. There is, as mentioned, random dead space. There is a LOT of people just laughing at each other's jokes while you just... wait for them to finish laughing and move on.
4. The jokes aren't really funny. Some are amusing, many fall flat, and there's nothing to take the edge off when they fall flat. The other comedians laugh either way. And they really need to pay attention to each other's jokes, because I'm not convinced they always hear them before they laugh. There was a clip where each of the three comedians said a minor variation of the exact same joke in sequence. It wasn't that funny the first time. It was agonizing the third. The comedy varies really wildly too. There's like one or two moments where they hit a natural groove and seem to legitimately react to clips in the way a human would and those kinda work, I guess? But boy are they rare.
5. This is the single worst part, and nobody else has mentioned it: The host segments. Thinking back to MST3K again, they have host segments! MST3K's often contained some humor. These do NOT, holy god. They bring the show from bland and dull to physically painful.
The host segments are worth breaking down further, because they're what convinced me one of the writers might be an alien.
The first episode's host segments involved them giving one of the protagonists(?) ransomware from... a review form for NSA branded soda that tasted awful? And then the protagonists did a parody of a "hacking sequence" that would have been amusing if the rest of the show wasn't so horrible. It turns out the NSA did this on purpose to see how good the ransomware was, and since the interns cracked it, they were going to fire someone in Encryption. The joke is that the NSA head loves firing people and ruining their lives! Then he drinks the soda and comments that it tastes bad. The credits are over outtakes of him saying the soda tastes bad. None of them are funny.
The second episode is where it goes off the rails and I think the alien was given writing credits. The newest intern has to take her first "randomized employee test". It could be literally anything and there are ominous consequences if she fails! So the other two train her by having her do exercise while answering random questions and getting shot by like an airsoft gun. Sitcommy, not at all funny. She gets to the test and it's being delivered by a robotic voice on a computer. The overlong "joke" while she authenticates her identification is that the NSA is super intrusive and even knows her overly detailed worst fear. The actual test is "what color is this square?" It's red. She's passed. It randomly cuts to a past evaluation of one of the other employees. The identification is a call and response of a Spice Girls song that also goes on way too long and was not funny to begin with. Then it just... goes back to the present I guess? The other two ask how her evaluation was. She says she aced it. They're shocked! Nobody aces it on the first try! Not since that one guy who works in Misinformation now, confusing people about whether or not coffee is healthy. She says "I always wondered if coffee is healthy!" They say "Exactly." That is the end of the show. Over the credits, the new employee watches a video of geckos licking water off a leaf while drinking a glass of wine.
I watched because I was stunned and confused. It is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen, and not in an entertaining way. Studies should be done on this show. You could really learn a lot about what not to do from it.