The Las Vegas reality-show genre reaches a new low point with the latest entry, Man vs. Vegas (CMT, Fridays, 10 p.m.), perhaps the most boring show ever produced about this town. Although it avoids the crassness of such programs as The Casino and The Club, Man vs. Vegas commits an almost worse sin by making Vegas appear both uninteresting and psychologically damaging (and not in a fun way).
The show's premise is that one-time venture capitalist Daren Leverenz, who lost $3 million gambling in Vegas in the '90s, sells everything he owns to come up with $1 million and returns to beat Vegas. Leaving aside for now the idea of whether it's possible to beat the town, the concept simply doesn't lend itself to good television. In each episode, Leverenz strolls into a casino with his wad of cash and sits down to play a table game of some sort. Along the way, he enlists average folks sitting around him to help him out, letting them share in some of his winnings.
What this amounts to is alarmingly close to those videos you can watch in hotel rooms that teach you how to gamble. Daren carefully explains (sometimes directly to his compatriots, sometimes in voice-over) how to play games such as craps and baccarat, and then he plays. Sometimes he wins and sometimes he loses, which is at least realistic, but it's not terribly interesting. The show is shot like an instructional video, too, with little in the way of exciting camera work or graphics. Say what you want about reality sleaze, but at least it's a reliable source of drama. Here the only tension is: Will Daren win or lose? The answer: Eh, a little of both.
The show is also a distressing portrait of a compulsive gambler who's being encouraged by a TV show to feed his addiction. Leverenz's official bio explains that after he lost his $3 million, his marriage fell apart and his business was left in shambles, and now he's sold all his belongings to get the money to appear on the show (disclaimers note that all of the money Leverenz gambles is his own). The very idea of taking revenge on an entire town is destined for failure, since everyone knows the house wins in the end. If his show doesn't catapult him into the realms of reality-TV superstardom (and that's highly unlikely), Leverenz will end up broke and without a support system. Then again, he'll be a prime candidate for A&E's Intervention.
Looking to capitalize on the success of The Daily Show, Comedy Central has introduced two new infotainment parodies to complement its mock-newscast. The first, The Showbiz Show with David Spade (Comedy Central, Thursdays, 10:30 p.m.), which premiered a few weeks ago, takes on Entertainment Tonight-style celebrity news programs, with host Spade reprising the celeb-skewering tactics he honed in his "Hollywood Minute" segments on Saturday Night Live. As with The Daily Show, Showbiz works best in its opening news segment, which most closely resembles Spade's old "Minute" bits. The rest of the show, with guest commentators and taped bits, isn't nearly as funny and comes off as unfocused and haphazard. Even at once a week, Showbiz might work a lot better as simply a few minutes of Spade tucked into The Daily Show.
The same goes for the more hyped TDS spin-off, The Colbert Report (Comedy Central, Monday-Thursday, 11:30 p.m.), with popular longtime TDS correspondent Stephen Colbert. A parody of pundit shows such as The O'Reilly Factor and Hardball, Report features Colbert as the character he has honed for years on TDS, a self-important blowhard with little regard for facts. While Colbert's show is on the whole funnier than Spade's, it's also going to get old quickly, especially airing four times a week.
While Jon Stewart essentially plays a heightened version of himself, Colbert is obviously acting on his show, and as such can't really break character for interviews or news segments. Comedy Central's desire to expand the Daily Show brand is understandable, but if they want to keep the integrity of their signature show, they should just expand it to an hour and bring the celebrity-bashing and pundit-parodying back in-house.