‘Last Comic Standing’ review: Nikki Carr, Karlous Miller, Monroe Martin shine
Tonight marked the end of “Last Comic Standing’s” invitational round, and while we had a good time with this and laughed often, we’re ready for this to be over. We want to get to actually know some of the comics that will be around for a while, and not just those who are going to be one-and-done.
As with the review last week, it is hard to really cycle through and offer up takes on some of the people we barely saw tonight. With that, we’re going to rank our favorite comics from worst to first in two separate groups: Those who had time on stage, and those who really didn’.t
Longer Sets Shown
7. Tim Harmston – We thought the whole time he was on there that his wife had auditioned to, and we were going to see what she (a doppelganger for Kristen Schaal) sounded like. Instead, we just had Tim … and we really felt he was lacking the punch needed.
6. Billy Wayne Davis – We’re torn on this one. There were some very good jokes in here about sleeves and possibly-racist expressions, but some of it took a little bit too long to get to the payoff.
5. Joe Zimmerman – A true comic. His set was not the best of the night, but one of the things that we really appreciated about this was that Joe actually had a great rapport with the judges even after his set was over.
4. Mike Gaffney – We feel like the Jackie Gleason vibe is obvious, and he was like a hybrid of him and Louis CK with the whole “I hate my kids” bit. The best part of this act was him commanding that everyone stopped cheering when he said that he was sober.
3. Monroe Martin – A great set. We didn’t love it as much as the judges, but we still admit it to be one of the better acts of the night. He had some very dark humor, and he handled emotional topics extremely well.
2. Karlous Miller – Great material, and a very good start to the show tonight. The biggest thing that we loved about his set was his commentary all about a southerner appearing in Los Angeles.
1.Nikki Carr – We loved this entire set from start to finish. We don’t care if the food bit went on for a little while, since we got so many laughs out of it.
Shorter sets
10. Sean Donnelly – Not a great set, mostly because we forgot most of it immediately after it was over.
9. Kurt Metzger – See above for some more analysis here.
8. JC Coccli – She really annoyed Roseanne, and only because she asked the audience how they were doing.
7. Kellye Howard – A great physical comic, but we felt it was almost too reliant on that.
6. Luiz J. Gomez – A hat joke. Not a lot else to report.
5. Pete Lee – More humor about being a married man.
4. Yamaneika Saunders – She wants to be the damsel in distress! The bit about this was okay, but we didn’t find it hilarious.
3. Chip Pope – A joke about coming out in a tiny room. Funny, but not quite enough to stand out.
2. Deanne Smith – She came at the end of a montage, and this is typically a good thing for advancing. Her “tell it to my balls” bit was funny enough that it apparently inspired a hashtag.
1. Tommy Ryman – A very awkward, very funny guy. We really wish he had a fun set shown.
In the end, the only result that was surprising for us was seeing Sanders get through, since the majority of the acts we ranked high here otherwise did. Grade: B.
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Photo: NBC