It was a lot of fun, but too much of the show felt too “stagy” or over-rehearsed: lots of musical numbers, for example.
However, there were some real moments of greatness:
- the Anna Coren segment
- anything involving audience participation and ad-lib
- a hilarious Aussie hip-hop skit
- a segment on Internet dating was incredibly insightful
- …as was a segment on website promotion
Plus, it was a nice reminder that yes, this was live, when Andrew’s guitar came unplugged during his song about incest, causing him to flub the next line.
The Chaser’s strength on TV is the public stunts that they pull off, and, of course, that style of subversive humour was very much missing in last night’s show.
I wonder: will they film this show and release it to DVD? If so, it’ll seem quite weak without the thrill of actually being a part of it, in my opinion.