‘The Gorburger Show’ is the Latest Talk Show Deconstruction

The past couple years have seen a number of comedy shows that operate as a deconstruction of the late night talk show. At the forefront have been Comedy Bang Bang and The Eric Andre Show, which take the format rooted so heavily in tradition and twist it into something fresh and original unlike anything that came before it. The latest talk show deconstruction comes in the form of The Gorburger Show. Based upon the online series by Funny or Die, The Gorburger Show features the voice of T.J. Miller as the alien host who is trying to entertain as well as learn about humanity. In its first episode, the show created by Ryan McNeely and Josh Martin (known as the Director Brothers) establishes that it’s fairly funny but hasn’t fully found its stride in the transition from online shorts to a half hour television show.

The Gorburger Show opens with a flamboyant man welcoming the audience to Zoom Zoom Honshu! What at first seems like a riff on crazy Japanese television takes a wild turn when Gorburger teleports in from some unknown dimension. The furry blue alien goes on a rampage, devouring and mutilating the hosts of the show he’s invading before shooing a few survivors off the anchor’s desk and nestling in to host. Having been unfamiliar with its Funny or Die origins, this opening was quite a surprise, but an absolutely hilarious one. Perhaps the opening is just too good because nothing that follows the rest of the inaugural episode quite matches the manic hilarity to start it off.

Once his talk show coup is complete, Gorburger settles in to interview his guest, comedian and musician Reggie Watts (the former co-host of Comedy Bang Bang, coincidentally). Their innocuous conversation is halted when Reggie asks about the stranger sitting near him. Gorburger introduced him, Trevbone aka “the Vaped Crusader.” The massive puffs of vapor coming from Trevbone distract Watts in his conversation, and this segment quickly runs out of steam. From there they go at a round of a talk show game of impressions but it just doesn’t work well comically, with the alien host not really conveying too much personality and stale jokes about vaping.

The second segment finds a bit more humor as Gorburger leaves the studio to visit a factory where sex dolls are constructed. However, most of the humor from this segment comes from just the outlandish stories that the company’s founder provides about custom orders that are somewhat unusual. Throughout the segment, Miller as Gorburger is just content to make some rather basic jokes about genitalia that just don’t have that much bite.

The episode concludes with a bit more talking before Trevbone gets up and performs tricks with his vape pen, making elaborate rings and such, until an unfortunate accident cuts his performance short. In due fashion, The Gorburger Show then wraps everything up with a musical performance by Reggie Watts with bassist Thundercat.

What The Gorburger Show is need of going forward is a more distinctive personality for its massive alien host. The creature is really an impressive piece of construction with facial features that emote and puppeteers to make it all work. Behind the impressive creature needs an impressive personality, one that feels different than T.J. Miller just putting on a growly voice. Awkward interviews aren’t enough to suffice. We’ve seen that format play out before and much better in other places.

Having seen a grand total of one episode, I’m in no position to write off The Gorburger Show. That opening is just so wondrously insane that I’m convinced that the team behind the show just wasn’t ready to cut loose on their first episode. They’re going to need to get a bit more daring with the concept and perhaps revel in Gorburger’s violent destruction a bit more. With seven more episodes to come this season, The Gorburger Show better find its unique voice or else that alien might not be around much longer.

The Gorburger Show debuts on April 9th at midnight only on Comedy Central.