Reviews in Pop Culture: Fake Review Shows
Review with Myles Barlow and Review
If you’ve found your way to Review Party Dot Com, then I’m guessing you’re a fan of two things: reviews and comedy. Those are the two ingredients we dispense with heavily on the show, all in the name of entertainment, and sometimes actual education.
But we aren’t the only shining warriors of review-based comedy to walk the dusty battlefield. And this week, we are once again turning our eyes to reviews in pop culture, with a twist.
Much like we two fond fools, comedians across time and place have taken simple premises and turned them on their heads. Review Party Dot Com is a review podcast. Simple premise, no? But the joke is that we don’t review movies or books or products, we review reviews, making a farce of the entire construct.
The same can be said for two shows that ran in the past two decades. While The Office or Parks and Rec mocked the workplace documentary, Review with Myles Barlow and its American successor, Review, spoofed review shows.
Like the British and American versions of The Office, there are differences and similarities between these two shows. But they’re each worth a look, so let’s get to looking.
Review with Myles Barlow (2008-2010)
The name of this show really says it all. Host Myles Barlow, famed reviewer, joins us each week to review some act or experience from real life, in order to provide a rating to us, the audience at home. The opening credits alone tell us that he’s given ratings for drowning (1/2 ★), molotov cocktails (★★★), crash landing (★★), and an M16 rifle (★★★★ .5 stars), among other things.
With a setup similar to tosh.0 or The Soup, viewers find Myles alone on a soundstage, where screens behind him present viewer questions from which he will choose what to review.
The first letter Myles receives is from Krystal who asks whether or not she should steal her best friend’s boyfriend, her best friend having already taken him from another girl. Myles is quick to point out that while Krystal’s question could be seen as an inquiry on love, the root of the question is stealing.
So just like that, Myles sets out to commit theft. And he does. Again and again, in increasingly ridiculous and dangerous ways.
Along the way, Myles only real company is a cameraman following on foot, whom we don’t see, and there is a brief interaction with Myles’ family, though we hardly get to know them. So our only company is the faux-melodramatic voiceover.
Myles is aloof, outlandish, and doesn’t weigh the gravity of any situation he finds himself in. He just keeps going.
Until, that is, the review segment fades to black and we find him back in the studio, no worse for wear. He gives his review and moves on to the next segment.
For now, let’s switch segments ourselves, and skip to talking about Review.
Review (2014-2017)
This American followup is loosely based on the Australian original. This show features Forrest MacNeil, a reviewer who at the outset tells us that he doesn’t review film, food, or anything anyone else reviews. He reviews life, so that we might learn how to live a fuller life. His intro tells us that rioting is ★★★★ .5 stars, rockstardom is a ★★★★★, as is assuming a new identity, but meeting the president is a painful ★★.
Just as likeable as Myles, Forrest is in a slightly more greenscreened hubroom, but is also joined by cohost A.J., who monitors the requests he gets for reviews. As if it were planned, Forrest’s first review is also stealing, though the question is directly about it, a bit of a disappointment after Myles’ lateral thinking brought us that prompt.
That said, the show immediately pulls the viewer in from this point, and from this point, I will start comparing and contrasting the shows more.
Immediately after getting the prompt, the cameras turn and follow Forrest out of the studio and into the world.
While the first item Myles steals is a comb from a gas station, Forrest steals malted milk balls, which he tells us he purchases weekly. Myles lies to his wife when she notices the comb, but we get to see the moral struggle Forrest goes through walking out of the store having not paid.
Both men soon happen upon old women carrying bags full of groceries, and both offer to “help.” But while Myles’ antics continue to escalate to more thefts and lies, we see the escalation of Forrest’s last pull, as he brings the stolen groceries home to his wife and son, who each get a moment of reaction to the items within.
This all makes us feel more connected to Forrest as he progresses into more dangerous situations. While Myles robs the man selling him a gun, and feels completely in control of every situation, we find out very quickly that Forrest is not omnipotent in his world, and that his actions have pretty immediate consequences.
There is a wonderful article on Vulture which compares the two shows in even greater detail than I have here, but they are each worth a watch in their own right. It may just be that the comparison to The Office is more apt than I originally thought. The American version of this show is lighter (though we do see Forrest suffer), and the Australian (close enough to British) has a darker humor that might not resonate as much with American audiences.
The good news is, you can compare them yourself. You don’t need to sit around listening to my reviews of them. Read the Vulture article, or better yet, check them out yourself. As of this writing, both seasons (or series as they’d call them) of Review with Myles Barlow is available for purchase on Amazon Prime. Or you can just find a decent quality rip on YouTube. All three seasons of Review are available for free on Comedy Central’s website, though you’ll have to watch some ads.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, neither reviewer totally loved the thrill of stealing. For Myles it was a ★★★ and for Forrest a ★★.
If you choose to watch either on YouTube, you can add stealing to the list of things you can review too. But it’s all in good fun.
