Situation: Comedy, the Finale: That's a Wrap!

Welcome to the final episode of Situation: Comedy, the show that follows the trials and tribulations of several young writers attempting to create their own sitcom pilot. In the last episode, we saw the shooting of the final version of their pilots. This week, we should see the editing of the pilots and find out the winner of the online voting.

This episode starts off with the four writers, Stan and Maxx, and Sean and Todd, sitting around waiting to hear the results of the voting. Each of them look a bit older than they did for the filming of the previous seven episodes, so I assume this segment was taped within the last few days.

But, before they reveal the winner, Maxx suggests that we do a recap of each team’s path towards victory. First, they start with Stephen’s Team, who wrote the script, Stephen’s Life. The writers are Andrew Leeds and David Lampson. A video montage begins playing on the screen. I will not bore you with the details, since loyal viewers will have seen everything already. I’ll concede that the writers will find it interesting, since they may not have seen the footage before.

Then again, maybe they have, since this segment was filmed only a few days ago and they’ve been watching themselves on TV for eight weeks. Then, they play the fifteen-minute pilot. Again, loyal viewers will have already seen the pilots on AOL. I described them in the previous recap, so I will skip that too.

Wow. This may be a very short recap!

Afterwards, we see the montage for The Sperm Donor, written by Team Sperm, also known as Mark Treitel and Jason “Shoe” Schuster. We also see their fifteen-minute pilot.

Suddenly, 45 minutes of the episode is gone and my recap is only six paragraphs long!

But, that doesn’t mean I can’t complain. I really think that the producers of this reality show and Bravo, in general, screwed this show over badly. For example, the two pilots were shown on television for the first time during episode eight. But, audience voting for the pilots has been closed for more than a week. Those viewers who are not very computer savvy or who have slow Internet connections could not see the pilots in time to vote. That is a really stupid way to run an audience-participation show.

Not only that, but Internet users could actually see the final product a week before they watched the episode where that product was actually produced. That leads to weird situations such as in episode seven, where it looked doubtful that Cheri Oteri’s lawyer would let her perform on the pilot. But, Internet users had been able to view the pilots online for two weeks at that point and they already knew that the problems with her lawyer must have been solved. Similarly, all the drama about whether Joanna would be able to act or would have to be replaced, was rendered moot to those viewers who had already seen the pilots on the Internet.

Granted, I do understand why the producers chose to do it this way. They needed to have all the votes in and tabulated in time to reveal the winners on the nearly-live eighth episode. But still, it seems like they could have figured out a way to present everything that needed to be presented in the proper order.

For example, have eight episodes much as they did and go ahead and show the two pilots on the eighth episode. Then, open up voting, via phone and Internet (with the pilots available for viewing again on the Internet). Then, announce the winners, live on an episode of NBC’s Today Show sometime during the next week (recall that NBC owns Bravo and seems to be a prime mover for this reality show).

Anyway, the montages and pilots are over. Each team, and the producers, can’t stop congratulating each other on what a fine job they did turning a raw script into a pilot in just six weeks.

Soon, however, they run out of self-compliments. Maxx announces that the winner will be revealed the next day, via a three-way conference call.

Okay, now I just don’t understand this. That’s a really bad way to announce a winner, over the telephone. You just can’t get too much more impersonal than that. It’s like, “Hello? You win. Goodbye and good luck. *click*”

Sigh. It’s just about time to announce the winners. The writers eagerly gather around their little speaker phones, sitting in their homes, to await the word. The writer’s anxiously finger their chilled bottle of champagne. Shoe tells us, “I hope America likes Sperm as much as we do.”

Ahem.

The phones ring and Sean announces that he is opening the envelope. The winner is, by a margin of only 10%, Stephen’s Life. Andrew and David win the grand prize - $25,000 from Discover card, $25,000 from Bravo TV, a one-year contract with the William Morris agency, and serious consideration from NBC to pick up their show.

Well, I think we all knew that was coming. That show was far more polished from day one. It also had two high-profile cameos in it. All the buzz around the Internet was that the show was much better than The Sperm Donor.

But, both teams did very well. As the champagne corks pop over at Stephen’s Team, Mark and Shoe tells us that they feel hopeful that this exposure will bring them many other opportunities in Hollywood.

Sean Hayes closes the show with a bit of advice to aspiring writers, “Keep writing and writing until you feel you have a good product. Then start pounding on doors to sell it.”

And with that, the series over. With the treatment that Bravo gave this show, and the minimal audience that it garnered, I’m assuming that this show will not be renewed for a second season. But, if it is, I’ll be right here, waiting to review it for you.

Bill (bing@paxentertainment.com) is a huge reality show fan. His favorite reality show is still Cannonball Run 2001. In fact, he just went out and bought the movies Cannonball Run, Cannonball, and Gumball Rally, which were all movies based around that original, and real, Cannonball race.

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