Sketch comedy is one of those things where one person will love it and the next will think it’s absolutely uninteresting. Comedy Central ran this show, Upright Citizens Brigade, for a brief three seasons, making one think that it must be more of the former rather than the latter. However, thanks to DVD sales the cult following that exists for this show is alive and happy.

I should mention that I am not one of the cult groupies. In fact, while I had heard of the show, before this review, I had never watched any episodes. After watching them, I came to realize the bad side of my job. Unfortunately, not all material that passes my desk is going to be interesting enough, well thought out enough, or entertaining enough to please me.

The idea behind UCB is that this group of four people, Colby (Amy Poehler), Antoine (Ian Roberts), Adair (Matt Besser), and Trotter (Matt Walsh) need to watch over the entire Earth. They do this through surveillance in order to destabilize society. This is where the sketch comedy comes in. The show offers various scenarios where the UCB watches people in different scenarios. Sounds simple enough right? While it may be simple that does not make it funny.

Don’t get me wrong occasionally I would laugh. However, considering its sketch comedy you would think that it would be consistently funnier than I found it to be. On average I sat there stone faced, wondering when I would laugh or if I would ever find any part of this show worthwhile.

If you like toilet humor you might love the second episode, “Poo Stick”. The Poo Stick is a self defense tool that consists of a branch with some doggy poop on the end. While I am sure that would deter an attacker to some respects, I would not call it incredibly engaging either. While original, I just feel the comedy missed the mark, which is a bad thing for a comedy show.

This two disc set does offer good video quality. I found no technical problems with these discs. The sound and audio were all nearly perfect. Special features include the shows original pilot episode, commentary tracks on several episodes including Time Machine, Little Donny Foundation, Power Marketing, Cyborgs, and Bucket of Truth, and a few deleted scenes. Some live performances, trailers, and promo spots are also included.

If you’re a big comedy fan you might like this, but I highly recommend renting this one before buying it if you’ve never seen the Upright Citizens Brigade before. It will be a better investment, only wasting a few bucks, if you find out that you are as disinterested in this show as I am. In the end, there are much better things to be watching. While the video and sound are great, without a good quality show it sure doesn’t mean much.

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Technorati Tags: Upright Citizens Brigade, Amy Poehler, Sketch Comedy, Comedy Central, Season One

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