With Andrew Denton as a producer, I was looking forward to witty debate about modern moral dilemmas, but instead we got an awkward mashup of panel, talk and game show – sprinkled with a weird national IQ special vibe. Last night’s big question: Is it OK to spy on your teenager online? Appropriately, it seems that timing is everything…
While discussing this “big worm” of a question, the guest panel were quizzed on their knowledge of “internet terms”. You know, gems like brick juicing, grooming, backdooring, rasterbating, poking and smut mining. (Huh? Just say porn hoarding.)
I was shaking my head well before AFL bad boy, Jason “Aker” Akermanis, joked that he was OK with his daughters backdooring. What the hell, man? And this was all pre-recorded.
Hosted (at times nervously) by Ian “Dicko”, and featuring comedian Meshel Laurie (wasted as a sort of number crunching Adriana Xenides) – the show’s other guests were The Chaser’s Craig Reucassel and comic George McEncroe.
All fell flat for me. Aker seemed genuine, but also sounded like he’d been prepped with one-liner dad jokes, and Reucassel all too obviously played the contrarian. George McEncroe is a funny stand up, but I can’t remember much she said now.
The positive signs for Can of Worms were its two auxiliary segments: Vox pops and Roy Morgan data visualisations. (Fun fact: Tasmanian parents are the least likely to cyber snoop on teenagers.)
The street interviews with Dan Ilic (a comedian/reporter from the also Denton-produced Hungry Beast) cleverly highlighted just how far some parents would go. Track my daughter with a chip she ingests? “Absolutely.”
And I’m purely guessing on the cyber snooping data animation, but it had the same cool style as the work of Patrick Clair, a Sydney designer who’s produced visuals for Hungry Beast in the past. We ran one of these on Giz, see: Stuxnet Deconstructed Shows One Scary Virus.
Can of Worms wraps up by asking guests what they’ve learned tonight. My lesson: Avoid shows with Twitter tickers running across the bottom of the screen. I should have spotted the symptoms, but it’s all about timing.
MDolley
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 7:26 AMI think it has potential, but they need to drop the lame game show bits. Replace them with more Ilic/Vox Pops. I also think it would be better live. Hopefully Denton won’t shy away from more hard hitting moral questions (like in the ads, where they asked people if it was wrong to say there is no God)
wsDK_II
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 10:46 AMThe only thing wrong about saying “there is no god” is the fact that you are incorrect; You can say it though, i dont have a problem with it
Corteks
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 12:15 PMLoL @ “fact”
You mean if you said “there is no god” you’d be 100% correct!
Of course it depends on the tone of the question, a better answer would be “there are many imagined gods, but it is technically impossible to prove if any of them actually exist or not. As such society must move forth under the teachings of science, not ridiculous ethereal mumbo jumbo about magical skymen.”
glennc
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 12:29 PMamen brother
Simon Reidy
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 12:42 PMAmen +2 brothers
borganstein
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 3:17 PM+1
simon c
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 12:45 PM“The only thing wrong about saying “there is no god” is the fact that you are incorrect”
Provide evidence that there is a god.
Adults with invisible friends…
Angus Kidman
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 7:28 AMMeshel Laurie definitely was the best thing about the show — I suspect it might work rather better with her instead of Dicko as host.
Nathan
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 10:31 AMLawry was the best thing? Did they ask the panellists if they knew what a failboat was?
Sam
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 12:53 PMUnlikely considering Dicko co-created the show…
Dean
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 7:34 AMInteresting, I hadn’t read anything about this coming in to watching the show last night, and honestly I’m quite surprised reading this. I really enjoyed the show. I think it’s a fresh new idea that will obviously need time to get off the ground, but I don’t think anyone was awful to watch by any means.
Veronica
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 7:58 AMI really enjoyed the show too and think it can only get better.
nick
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:06 AMDidnt even bother with it, who wants to watch a show about celebrities opinions ? This wont last long.
Dan
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:14 AMWhat is it with having celebs on these type of shows? Channel 10 really need to stop with these type of shows. They are boring and uninteresting. Especially when the panel is a bunch of unfunny nitwits, and a even more unfunny and awkward looking host. And don’t get me started on Meshel Laurie. My god, as soon as I saw her I was like well there’s the last nail in the coffin.
Would not at all be surprised of this gets moved to 11 and put on at 9:30 Saturday night.
bugwan
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:27 AMDicko was too scripted – not that it would be easy on night one of a new show, then again Denton’s always picked annoying hosts for his shows – Wil Anderson anyone?
There was some vague potential there, but I think my interest will waver halfway through next week’s show.
Ben Teoh
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:48 AMProbably not so much that Dicko was too scripted, I think he just didn’t know how to deliver it well. Even veterans like Adam Hills and Shaun Micallef are scripted.
Tezz
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:49 AMAnderson is a great host and intelligent to boot.
Rossco
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:58 AMAustralian TV is the pits.
Jason
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:15 AMAwful. No rhythm or grip. And Meshel Laurie was a huge let down. I give this show 4 more episodes before it’s pulled.
Effluvium Boy
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:18 AMDidn’t watch it, but sounds a bit like The Wright Stuff from the UK
Colin
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:26 AMDidn’t really work for and the wife either. But I might be improved with a mix of “eminent thinker” typed and everyday folk as the panel, provide Dicko can moderate so each gets a fair go. And definitely needs weightier “worms”.
Awnshegh
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:27 AMLoads of potential but the execution was too stilted. It needs to be stripped of the game show pieces (as mentioned before) and as much as I like Dicko – they need a presenter who can work with a live audience – even if the show remains pre-recorded.
The worst part though was sitting through ads – I generally don’t watch any ‘TV’ unless it’s on the ABC as I detest commercials and the ads only made this show look worse that it really was.
anon
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:32 AMi think it’s just the subject matter that offended you Mr allen. Is it possibly a little too close to reality (called denial in some circles) for your liking.
I’ve never heard any of those terms, but I guarantee teens are engaging in them, so a bit of education for us baby boomers is probably not a bad thing.
Adam
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:41 AMDicko’s in it – what more reason does anyone need to watch something else?
Ben Teoh
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:57 AMTotally fell flat. I was hoping to see something intelligent and worthwhile coming from this. The ads were great, and looked like they were going to seriously tackle some decent questions – but, no.
There was that part where the celebrities had to pick a topic and answer a question about it – what a joke. What was that question if “you’d be worried if your wife/husband had 50 sexual partners before you?” Seriously? That’s meant to generate meaningful discussion?
villainsoft
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:58 AMPainful to watch. Cringe-worth jokes that fall flat. ill educated and uninformed commentary.
At least 10 is trying something new… until it is canned and replaced with an “encore” presentation of some lazy import.
Shane O'Sullivan
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 9:59 AMWatched it with the kids and it provoked a bit of discussion in our house. I thought Aker would love to weigh in with an opinion or three and he didn’t disappoint. Kudos to him for sharing about his flirtation with teenage suicide as well. I also believe it has potential, I’ll definitely give it another go next week!
Jane
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 10:04 AMI was quite looking forward to this from the promos I had seen (notably vox pops) but it lurched from vaudevillian to excruciating. I was amazed they would put Akermanis up on their first show: a) he has a reputation as a “nutter” and b) he is simply not of any public interest, confined to the back blocks of Tasmania in a sport that only half of the country watches anyway. I agree the base concept has potential, and the vox pops were good, but the horror moment of the “internet terms” was the apex in a show that went no where for me. I hope they can patch it up!
Ben H
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 10:21 AMI turned off after two minutes, during the “Wrong-o-meter” segment. Any show that touts itself as discussing current issues but has a football player as a guest is doomed to failure. Definitely one of the worst Australian shows on TV, and that is saying something.
Mikey
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 10:45 AMI think it has potential too, they say it may offend people, but wasnt like that last night. Offensive to call someone a bogan, 90% of people asked didnt really care. It does have potential if they really stick to the format and ask the right questions like, why exactly is having a blackboard at school racist and referring to anything black racist. Why do councils ban Christmas celebrations due to possible offending someone. Hopefully they will learn from the first episode and get the harder questions out. Besides same thing happened with 7PM Project when first happened, Doomed to fail, worst show ever but now days, its actually watchable sometimes lol.
Big Windows
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 11:00 AMOlder people… Newer topics… Where was the youth on the show… Nowhere to be seen… Someone is not doijng their social media research.
Blake
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 11:26 AMI personally am just tired of asking celebrities with no credibility questions that they don’t have any place answering (with any authority) and passing it off as entertainment.
Craig was the only person there who could justify his opinion with any great nuance.
The ad concepts were good as they were asking questions to regular people. Which is far more refreshing to discover compared to finding out what Aker thinks. Because he will tell us anyway.
It would have been far more interesting if they asked the public, found out their opinion and taken it back to the studio where it would have been discussed by people knowledgeable in that field.
The show just comes off as lazy tv on par with 20 to 1.
Hamish
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 11:45 AMDidn’t watch the show, the ads put me off. But the Twitter ticker for Q&A works FOR the show, not against as you’ve suggested it does for Can of Worms. Guess it depends on the demographic tuning in and tweeting…
aCe
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 12:19 PMJust more crapy Channel 10 “panel-esque” aussie programming, similar to the 7pm Project. Who cares what these name dropped celebs think about modern issues with gameshow styled themes. How is this in any way relevant or informative?
I think they are trying to find issues where there are none by placing a slant on news topics that would barely make headlines for you to skim over.
Gimme a break, Chanel 10 should leave the productions to the pros and keep this junk off the airways.
Rob
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 12:26 PMSo it didn’t meet the author’s expectations, therefore it’s fail? Fark, I can’t stand Gen-Y writers.