‘Last Comic Standing’ preview: A mess of a sketch

After watching the preview video below for Thursday’s “Last Comic Standing,” the one thing that we have to say is that we feel for Aida Rodriguez. The comics are tasked this week with taking on a variety of sketches, and she seemed to be trapped on an island with no way off it thanks to the others taking all of her tools.

Without the metaphor, let’s just put it like this way: Jimmy Shubert and the rest of her team were all over the place in this scene; we mention him specifically since he was behind and we have no clue what he was doing most of the time. She probably spared herself too much embarrassment mostly by keeping her characters throughout.

Of course, we do have to say that we are very much aware that sketches in front of a live audience are a thousand times harder than you imagine. This is why “Saturday Night Live” never gets the credit that they deserve for being able to pull off a 90-minute show 20+ episodes a year. There is a specific rhythm (as pointed out in here) that a sketch requires, and once things start to fall off a cliff, they can’t recover. For Aida and Jimmy, things were slipping before anyone else could enter the room.

This is a tough task given that some of these comics are probably very limited in sketch; there are some who may have had some experience at UCB or a similar comedy group, but those who don’t have an enormous disadvantage. Still, we’re glad that the show is going somewhat back to the format of the first few seasons with these random challenges. We’ve always found it interesting, and we also found that the other “a set a week” from all the finalists led to some material having to be re-used by the finale. There’s another great comic misconception: That creating an hour of material is easy. This can take years to produce and perfect to the point where it is ready for an audience.

Come back tomorrow night for a full review of this episode; for now, laugh your way over to the link here to get TV updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter.

Photo: NBC