All People Are Famous (TV)
It’s almost unheard of that I get asked to review an episode of television, whether you’re talking the ol’ boob tube, or online television. But when the director of a film I watched called “Don’t Shoot the Pharmacist!” asks me to check out a series he’s working on, what am I going to say, no? The question is, whether it could live up to the film that brought me to the filmmaker in the first place.
“All People Are Famous” is a prank show, about a group of people who stage auditions and interviews for unsuspecting “victims.” But each of these auditions and interviews has a quirk to it that the victim doesn’t figure out. It’s a simple premise, one we’ve seen often in other formats over the years. Because of the familiarity of the premise, it’s hard to really gauge the show in terms of originality, because I’m sure by now, in the era of the internet, we’ve seen this type of thing many times before. What matters is the execution, and while there’s something fun about the way Dave Broitman (the director and one of the co-creators of the show) set things up, it’s not quite as audacious and outrageous as it perhaps should be to make an impact. That outrageousness that’s missing here was a big part of why his feature, “Don’t Shoot the Pharmacist!,” was so funny. This was just the first episode, so more times watching it would help see if it becomes something especially wicked. Right now, it’s simply a slight comedic effort, although one that is fun to watch.
