Review: 'Live From WZRD'

Comedy is hard.

You can be very talented, you can have a great on-camera presence and be the most likable person in any room. But being able to deliver a joke and accurately land the punchline is an acquired skill that not everyone can pull off. And all of those challenges are on display in the first two episodes of "Live From WZRD," which premieres today on the VRV video platform.

The series stars hip-hop artist Open Mike Eagle and comedian Dani Fernandez as the hosts of a talk/variety television show produced at the Gatewood Wizarding Community College for Wizards. Think "Wayne's World," but with magic. In each episode, the duo discuss current events at the college, interview (or more precisely, kidnap) a guest or two while having a lot of wry, wizardly-babble conversations.

In other words, the series is in the same comedic wheelhouse as everything from "The Larry Sanders Show" to "Community." And like those shows, the ultimate creative success of the project rises and falls on the jokes and the ability of the performers to deliver them. But in the the case of "Live From WZRD," the results so far are mixed.

First, the writing. The premise is certainly promising enough and there are some hints of actual punchlines in the episodes. But far too often the dialogue just seems to meander around like a senior citizen at a half-off Goodwill Store sale. You can see a joke being set up in a scene and then the moment just drifts away. It's frustrating as a viewer but it's also not doing any favors for either Open Iron Mike or Dani Fernandez. They are both comfortable performers and based on some of their other work, they are capable of delivering a joke. But this format doesn't seem like a natural fit for either performer and as a viewer, you spend a lot of time thinking, "wow, that could have gone better."

It's no accident that the two elements of the show that are consistently the funniest are the faux commercials interspersed in the show-within-a-show and the conversations with the show's producer. Fake commercials are some of the easiest things to write and there are some real sparks of laughter in the spots. And Jessica McKenna is easily the funniest thing on on "Live From WZRD." She has a wealth of comedic experience and she knows how to deliver just the right tone as she plays a show producer who doesn't have any wizarding abilities.

McKenna's scenes really best illustrate what isn't working in "Live From WZRD." Since most of the casts and guests (primarily YouTube performers and influencers) aren't natural comedians, they need to have solid jokes as the bedrock to get them through the scenes. And at least in these first two episodes, those punchlines are nowhere to be seen.

While it might sound like I'm panning the show, I'm actually arguing that it has the bones of a fun series. But as I said at the top of the review, comedy is hard. It takes work and the right talent to get it right. The talent is certainly in place on "Live From WZRD." But without tighter scenes and sharper jokes, this will continue to be a show that is more about potential than viewer satisfaction.