TV Tuesdays Free Talk

I recently signed up for Dropout.tv which is the streaming service for College Humor. I love British panel shows, and was sad that there weren't really American panel shows, but that's exactly what Dropout provides. There are a few that I see as standouts:

GameChanger - the game where the game changes (almost) every time. Each show has a schtick, and they're almost all different. Sometimes the panelists are told what the game is and sometimes they have to figure it out. They are currently making a big play for subscribers, so if you pay any attention to YouTube shorts, you've probably seen something like Brennan Lee Mulligan hilariously unable to identify birds, or "I like my lovers like I like my local library". There are also some old full episodes on YouTube.

Um, Actually - a trivia game for nerds, where the host reads out a statement that is not quite correct and the panelists have to buzz in, and say, "Um, actually..." and explain what the mistake is. You can also distract yourself by trying to figure out what's wrong with every item on display in the background.

Total Forgiveness - two friends compete at worse and worse tasks for money to pay off their student loans. It gets out of hand.

Paranoia - it's the game "Mafia" but the conceit of the game is that the setting is a school, and you have to identify the students that are stoners. The twist is that at the start of the game, the stoners get profoundly stoned and have to attempt to play that way.

There is also an incredible amount of DnD content - all of Dimension 20 is available - and a ton of college humor stuff that is also otherwise available on YouTube is also available here.

One thing that unexpectedly seems to be a thread through each show is a strange kind of wholesomeness. Don't get me wrong, there are astonishingly filthy things, and a lot of this is strictly for adult audiences. But underneath the filth and depravity, there's always this undercurrent of people working together who actually care about each other. The host of GameChangers is Sam Reich, who is the CEO of Dropout, and I've started to model some of my leadership practices after his. He seems genuinely kind, and genuinely caring for the people working for him.

I stopped watching The Last of Us. I didn’t care enough to continue, Episode 3 was a bright spot but that’s about it.

I’m also starting to get bored by Abbott Elementary. I think expanding the second season to 24 episodes was a bad idea. That’s something that TV has moved on from for a reason, because it makes it feel bloated. That first season felt a lot tighter than what’s happening in this season.

Poker Face has been really good though. It does what Rian Johnson does best, subvert expectations.