There are too few half hour “comedies” on TV to look forward to. HBO offers the occasional season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and, by the grace of god, FX is giving us a third run of It’s Always Funny in Philadelphia (easily the funniest thing on television – ever). But none of them last long enough – six or eight episode runs that we get for two months out of the year, if we’re lucky. The only sitcom I have to look forward to on a weekly basis is How I Met Your Mother*, and despite the fact that it gets better almost every week, CBS doesn’t really allow the brazen offensiveness that I need. Instead of mocking minorities, cripples or the dying, I have to settle for jokes at the expense of Canadians. As much fun as that is, I still crave the inappropriate.
That’s why The Sarah Silverman Program came as such a pleasant surprise, and why last night’s sudden season finale was so frustrating. Despite being renewed for a second season almost the day after the premiere of the first, the general absence of funny comedies on television made the last couple of weeks with Sarah that much sweeter. And now she’s left me until god knows when.
People with no moral compass are fascinating, and Sarah’s ability to constantly play someone so blinded by her own self-centeredness, you have to wonder if she’s really just a big creep. Regardless, exploiting homeless people, blacks, Jews, her abandoned daughter, shop-clerks, cops, gays, children with cancer and people with AIDS while frequently cutting away to sing songs about pooping at the mall or pooping when you’re trying to fart – this is what I like to see.
The first season of TSSP gives you the opportunity to laugh at someone else’s ignorance when it’s too hard to laugh at your own. And for those who get too squeamish from watching overly awkward situations, the sporadic potty humor musical breaks will see you through to the end.
An encore of the season finale airs tonight at 10:30 on Comedy Central; second season and a DVD release of the first to come.
*Oops, ignoring Scrubs, 30 Rock and The Office was lame. But that’s more like one 90-minute comedy extravaganza anyways.