Joel McHale is best known for his 100 appearances on the TV series “Community” though he recently finished up a stint with “The Great Indoors.” Netflix, always on the prowl for new, original programming, decided to give McHale an opportunity to host a show about the pop culture and the general craziness of the world today. Of course, McHale’s turn of good fortune comes at the expense of Chelsea Handler, whose show was axed about 3 months ago, lasting only two seasons.
What McHale has to figure out is whether or not he can put together a show that will competitive against the horde of late night TV shows. The unrelenting trend has been to focus on politics, but unless he can find a new angle to pursue that will pull viewers away from their favorite shows (these viewers are a devoted group) he likely will have the same fate as Handler.
Handler posted a weird message on Twitter, explaining the reasons for her departure. So there is a conflict whether Handler quit or the show was axed. (It’s always a race these days to quit before you get fired.) Her Tweet is important because it may show whether she didn’t have the talent to compete against the heavy hitters (making it McHale’s dilemma) or Netflix reluctantly acceded to her request to stop at the end of 2017. The ratings say that Handler flopped, even though Netflix still maintains a relationship with her.
While fans of McHale say that this is a new opportunity for him to continue his sarcastic style left over from “Soup” on E!, history tells us that “Soup” was an overhauled version of “Talk Soup” which didn’t fare well either. It seems McHale is walking from one disaster into another, though it is a job (albeit a temporary one as far as we can see).
But let’s look at the upside of McHale’s new opportunity. He was nominated for several Critics Choice Awards for “Community” as well as a Darby. But most of the heavy hardware nominations, the Primetime Emmy Awards, went to other members of the cast. He took the lead for 22 episodes of “The Great Indoors” on major network CBS and managed a 6.2 rating on IMDB, a critical 45% at Rotten Tomatoes, and was cancelled after a single season. One reviewer wrote, “The Great Indoors is passably amusing, even if you can see just about every punch line coming.”
None of this bodes well for McHale or the show, and it seems Netflix is using McHale as a pause while going after more serious talent. Like Handler, he took to Twitter to post this odd comment: “Hey @Netflix: I think you misunderstood when I demanded “a lot of green” for my new show. #JoelMcHaleShow.” It seems he didn’t get the “green” he was hoping for and decided to play it down.
As long as everybody is happy (well, except for the viewers) this situation can work out well for both Netflix and McHale. Handler didn’t seem to leave in a snit, so regardless of whether she was axed or quit, Netflix showed some class in it all. Hopefully McHale will be able to say the same — after season 1 ends.
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