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Comedy Central’s “Distraction”

Being sick and at home is one quick way to up my television-watching-quotient significantly. Normally, I watch sports and Scrubs — the two “S”es that keep me happy, sane, and entertained. But being sick changes all of that — suddenly, the television and its programming have a huge impact on my entire day.

So, on Monday and Tuesday, while sick, I surfed the 900 million channels of satellite TV looking for the surprise gem. For example, I was tickled to find “Two Guys and a Girl” (motto: “we dropped the ‘Pizza Place’ part because one show can only write so many plot themes around a pizza parlor”), one of my favorite TV shows that has long since been out of production, being shown on the Women’s Entertainment channel. Little surprises like that keep the world looking bright.

I eventually stumbled on Comedy Central’s newish game show, “Distraction”, complete with a smarmy host with a British accent. The premise is simple and had me intrigued — we’ll ask the contestants really simple questions, but we’ll come up with new and exciting ways to torture them while they answer. Reminds me of the premise of a failed reality quiz-show that came out during the height of the “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” craze wherein they stuck some poor person into like, an oven, and asked them questions while slowly turning up the heat. They even displayed a helpful thermometer in the corner of the screen, to remind you that it was really hot in there. (What was this show called? What station did it air on? Am I making this up? I cannot find any references to it on Google, and I can’t remember a name. Help me out here.)

“Distraction” isn’t nearly as cruel, though. It’s mostly harmless little bits that just distract the contestant a bit. In the episode I watched, the players had to: slap a buzzer that was another player’s butt in order to buzz in (the girl on girl butt slapping was supposed to be titillating, I think, and then we were supposed to watch the guys squirm at having to touch a same-sex butt. Something like that, anyway), answer questions while carefully placing clothespins all over their face (the most clothespins got a bonus; the two guys seemed mostly unphased but the girl was stamping and screaming and generally just making a big fuss over a few dozen clothespins), and then answer questions while stuntmen smashed breakaway chairs and glass objects over their heads (for safety purposes, the participants wore goggles).

The winner got a car, and I felt a little sorry for the losers. But not really. The questions weren’t hard enough to be a source of entertainment, and the distractions were just that — little distractions that weren’t particularly entertaining, either. Just kind of a half-assed show.

1 1/2 stars out of 4.

Thu April 14th, 2005 5:38 pm

Filed under Reviews, Televsion