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"Norm Macdonald has a show," and he's so stuffy and weird that it's hard to understand exactly what he's trying to do. Even David Letterman – who has known Macdonald for years, produced the series and was the one who suggested doing it in the first place – had to stop halfway to his interview to marvel at it the strangeness of what was happening. "I feel like I'm in a show in another country," Letterman remarked, immediately inspiring a wave of Macdonald's laughter, his sidekick Adam Eget, and threatening crew members right on the screen.
It's a moment that, much to Macdonald's joy, is repeated over and over again in each episode as he, Eget and a single guest, pile up for sinuous conversations. Macdonald punctuates the interviews – which are only "interviews" in the most cowardly sense of the word – with his discordant irreverence peaks to keep things weird and even off-putting. The only constant point is that MacDonald ends each episode with a series of deliberately terrible jokes, which he and his guest read back and forth as he smiles. Sometimes, as with David Spade, the guest only raises his eyebrows and goes with the weird flow. Other times, as with Drew Barrymore and Jane Fonda, the guest finds a way to go back. Yet he always makes sure to send them all on their heels as they try to follow the game he plays at all times – which is, of course, exactly what MacDonald likes.
But if it does not look like "Norm Macdonald has a show" has a real plan or discernible direction beyond "Norm Macdonald could have a show," this unfortunately does not seem to be the case at all. Of course, Macdonald is happy to have this kind of platform, even if it's only for the nearby Netflix brand beverage fridge. But even he seems confused by what he – a historic standup comedian with a deep and often stubborn reverence for form – is supposed to do with the format of a talk show. At one point, Macdonald mentions to Letterman that he has "no idea what to do with $ 2 million per episode," and, true to Macdonald's form, it's impossible to say with certainty if it's a joke.
In total, the show is more like a free-wheeling podcast that has been filmed for posterity; The only real benefit of a visual element is to see the confusing ball of its guests in real time. (The episode of Jane Fonda, by far the best screenplay for critics, has some particularly good moments in this regard.) As the constant boiling of Macdonald and the company during each episode proves, everyone has a good time to watch the confusion unfolds. And in all fairness, why should not they be? Like Letterman and Jerry Seinfeld before him, Macdonald was attracted to Netflix by CEO Ted Sarandos, expressing his admiration for him. Nothing is guaranteed on TV, but this guarantee is as effective as any other.
And at least in the four episodes I've seen so far, Macdonald has never really wandered into the same controversial conversations that caused him so much trouble with an interview before the show; He deliberately avoids issues like #MeToo and the fall of his friend Roseanne Barr to keep the show greener. By observing how he directs his own show, it's not hard to understand how he came across the controversy. For Macdonald, being a bizarre contrarian is so much a part of his personality that he would never have to do it again when it comes to saying, for example, that his friend Louis C.K has been harassing women for years. Macdonald's comedy is so resolutely Teflon-esque, moving from one conclusion to the other with a radical eagerness, that everything that happens to him beyond a sentence must be somewhat confusing for him.
That could make him a true hero with some. But by 2018, as pop culture is reevaluating itself with incisive self-awareness and a willingness to adapt, it's incredibly frustrating to see a cartoon defined by its abrupt comment wander aimlessly through this series, just because it the can. Even though it is easy to answer the question of how Macdonald gets this show, the question of why anyone from the outside, he and his fans, should be concerned about it. is never.
Talk show, 30 minutes (10 episodes, four viewed for review.) The first Friday, September 14 on Netflix.
Jeter: Norm Macdonald, Adam Eget.
Crew: Norm Macdonald, Lori Jo Hoekstra, K. P. Anderson, Daniel Kellison.
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