★★★★★ 0/5

Cracking start for This Week Live

Royal baby gags, schongs, Bob Katter, fake ads and genuine chemistry -TEN's new panel show is off and running.

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IMG_0816TEN’s new panel show This Week Live has burst out of the gates with plenty of laughs and chemistry from its panel of four: Tom Gleeson, Meshel Laurie, Dave Thornton and possible new network star Tommy Little.

The show, as first revealed by TV Tonight, may have borrowed some elements from Working Dog’s former The Panel, but it paid off a treat, enhanced by the comedy gift of a Royal Birth the day before.

Tom Gleeson’s rant on the baby prince was priceless stuff, capped off with Tommy Little’s “totes gyno for your vagino” gag. A Gleeson interview with Bob Katter for “I Hate You, Now Change My Mind” was equally wicked.

Little’s invention of a Schong (thong that doubles as shoe) was so popular it may well see him starting a new business on the side.

There were even fake ads screening in the middle of TEN’s ad breaks. Producer Craig Campbell told TV Tonight, “I wanted to mix it up a bit. By putting content in the breaks you kinda never know where the show’s attitude will pop up. I wanted to own the whole hour not just the show content.”

Even Hugh Jackman got in on the fun with a mock interview, pre-recorded from the US.

If Twitter is any gauge of audience reaction -and we know it isn’t always- TEN has a promising new show on its schedule:

I’m all yours #ThisWeekLive. Wednesday nights are booked up. Well done #networkten

#thisweeklive rounded out a very nice night of comedy. Welcome to my viewing schedule @thisweeklivetv

so many of my favourite comedians on one show!!!!

Sketches that go for 20 seconds… excellent! #ThisWeekLive

Flicking between #wednesdaynightfever and #thisweeklive getting a lot of laughs… Go Aussie comedy

Best segment ever “I hate you, change my mind’ #thisweeklive

A spoof ad in an actual ad. Give this show a damn Logie already!

This Week Live is actually quite funny so far. Lots of anti #royalbaby jokes. Good work. #thisweeklive

Dave & Tommy’s reaction to each other is hilarious. #ThisWeekLive

To wrap up the only thing I didnt like bout #thisweeklive is deciding which panellist I like best. Like asking a patent to choose a fave kid

65 Responses

  1. The “I Hate You, Change My Mind” was the best bit last night in a brilliant first episode. Bob Katter is absolutely hilarious.

    What’s the “bet” that Tom Waterhouse is the guest for that segment next week?

  3. I’d tuned in to Wednesday Night Fever on ABC, it was awful so started flicking channels and made my way to Ten to this. Thoroughly enjoyed it!

    I thought the fake ads though were just a way of fitting in extra commercials before and after? It sure seemed like a lot of commercials anyway…

    But great mix of panelists!!

    The Bob Katter interview brought the LOLs

  4. average show, wanted to give it a shot, have done, won’t again.
    I’ve never thought Tom Gleeson was funny, yet he came across as the funniest on there – doesn’t say much for it. Most of Little’s gags fell flat.
    not only did it seem the audience was paid to laugh, but it seemed they actually had fake laughter sounds playing to increase the noise. some small comments that didnt even seem like they were meant to be funny got huge laughter.
    this further re-iterated aussie TV is dead, with this and the ridiculous amount of cooking shite(aussie bake-off WTF)/house building/singing crap on TV, it’s back to foxtel series for me.

  6. @TVTim – agreed – found nothing funny about it ….. just another typical ten production looks like it costs a couple of hundered bucks to put the set together …. perhaps rent a crowd …….. and they call it entertainment …. i turned off after 2 mins … looks like it didn’t even rate …. another one for the ten shareholders to ask how their money is being wasted?

    1. I can still recall saying after the first episode of The Panel “isn’t it really just radio on TV?” And it was. But it was about chemistry, as Adam Boland recently reiterated at Wake Up launch, and I stuck with the show for years.

  7. I was cracking up in the first segment and thinking.. there’s no way they can sustain this level of humor for the whole hour..

    and they did.

    They really got the chemistry right with this one.. everyone has a role to play.. Gleeson is the seasoned comedian, Meshel brings the female spin, Tommy is the ‘Little’ brother trying to keep up with the big kids and Thorton is that friend that doesn’t say much, but delivers gold one liners every now and then.

    Really looking forward to this next week.

  9. The Gleeson interview of Katter was quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Great start to hopefully what continues to be a great show.

  10. Great show and I hope it pays off for TEN. They’re having a red hot go this year at re-energising their lineup and producing some off centre programmes. The fake commercials are brilliant and will surely start a trend (an advertisers wet dream I would suspect)

    This is everything that the unfunny Project is not.

  11. Kudos to Ten for trying something new. The cast have great chemistry already and a mix of segments worked well.
    That being said,
    1. The set looked cheap, community TV cheap. Why is this such a common factor on Australian TV?
    2. The audience laughter was far too loud and distracting at times. So much so that it occasionally was louder than the content.
    3. I can’t imagine how this team or show would ever be able to cover a major disaster event. The Panel seem to be able to do that with respect. I just can’t see that with this cast.

  15. Rocky opening routine? Come on, that had to be one of the best openings ever for a brand new show. They hit the mark completely from the first gag and never let up. Congratulations to all cast and crew, best new show debut for years, Tom Gleeson was brilliant.

  16. Going on Ten’s recent track record I wasn’t expecting much but they really smashed it. So many laugh out loud moments. They all made brilliant contributions and left me wanting more.

  17. I missed most of it because of the soccer on 7 but I checked out a couple minutes after that finished and it seemed decent enough. Although it did still seem familiar to The Project. Probably because most of them have actually appeared on there before.

    Not sure how it’ll fare because of the soccer though. I hope they stick with it.

  19. Wow, maybe I was the only one who thought it was dreadful? I couldnt tolerate it after the first 15 mins and swtiched off, although it still recorded the full show on the PVR. The opening was odd going straight into jokes without an introduction to who these people were.
    The jokes seemed weak, yet the audience were cracking up, makes me think they were told to laugh as hard as possible being the first show. These hosts are radio funny, not TV funny. Radio offers much more spontinaity bouncing off the co-host, guests and callers. This seemed rehearsed and they were waiting for their turn to tell their gag with a pre-arranged photo to appear.
    I’ll perhaps check out the rest of the episode but i’ll keep my finger hovering over the +15sec skip button. This show reminded me why I like The Panel, that was actually funny with hosts that were in the comedy business for well over a decade.

  21. Wasn’t expecting much but I really enjoyed this show. A breath of fresh air. Hopefully it will rate well considering it didn’t have much competition in the form of Arrow and The Mole. With some big episodes of Offspring coming up it, This Week Live will have a very solid lead in.

    Kudos to Ten for finally producing some new shows. Not everything is going to be a raging success but at least they’re attempting to getting themselves out of the downward spiral they got themselves in through poor decision making.

    Wanted hasn’t set the world on fire as far as ratings go, but it’s seen Ten improve by 22% in the dreaded Monday 8:30pm timeslot.

    It will be a slow ride, but hopefully Ten have begun the journey.

  22. I taped it and haven’t watched it back. Now I’m going to have to watch the ads instead of fast forwarding them. Sounds like a great show.

  23. After a rocky opening routine, this show buzzed along nicely. The panel have great chemistry. I think the mock advert. in the middle of the real ones might be a world first!
    Go Ten – reclaiming its mojo.

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