El Rey Nation (2019–2020)
1/10
Really missed the mark
12 May 2019
I feel bad, but this is just a boring show. I only got about 5 minutes in (one of their "lightning round" sessions) before I had to turn it off. It was their fake eulogy to Super Nintendo that really killed it for me. The "eulogist" was pretending that SNES was a childhood friend of hers and acting choked up while trying to be funny. It was just amateurish and honestly kind of cringeworthy.

The panelists seem nice, but I've never heard of them before, and any expertise any of them may allegedly have just didn't come across. It was like watching a couple friends off the street talk about who was better: James Bond or Jason Bourne/Backstreet Boys vs N'Sync. And again, their opinions really weren't compelling or insightful enough to warrant giving their opinions any sort of merit. Nor were they funny enough to sit and watch just for entertainment. It was almost like that shortly lived TV show of people watching other TV shows and talking about them - only less entertaining. At least those people had funny remarks about what was going on.

They film in front of some sort of audience, but you literally only hear two or three people clapping offscreen. So, I don't know if they just haven't been able to wrangle up an audience (which is telling - and understandable after watching it) or they were as unamused as I was. I suppose it could be the crew clapping, but then why treat them like a studio audience?

It's not a horrible idea, it's just not well executed. I like that they're "regular joes", but they should at least be funny enough to want to hear what they have to say. So, ironically, the one thing that makes them different is also their downfall. I think I watched the 2nd or 3rd episode, so it's possible they're just nervous and haven't found their groove, but they're so green it really seemed like they'd not been in front of the camera before nor had much experience discussing the topics - kind of like going to an open mic night at a stand up club.

I feel bad giving such a poor review to a fledgling show on a smaller cable channel, but it just wasn't entertaining enough to want to watch, let alone tune in on a regular basis. And I was watching a recorded episode because there was nothing else on - I didn't turn it off to watch another show. I hope they find their groove and prove me wrong, but... It made Chelsea Lately look like The Tonight Show.
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