I want to love Onion SportsDome. I really do. I've wanted a good sports news show based in parody for a long time, and now that we've gotten it, I'm reluctant to say bad things about it as it may be the only one we ever get.
The show has some high points, and manages to land about one really funny topic a week that can overcome it's baggage. Skits like "Who Would You Kill?" are terrific sendups of the terrible SportsCenter fake argument segments. Inept terrorists bombing the Pro Bowl was an inspired segment, as was the cancer-stricken Phillies fan who used Make-A-Wish to heckle David Wright.
Unfortunately, SportsDome is so divided between trying to parody the sports world and trying to parody SportsCenter that it really loses focus. They'd really benefit from having a straight face on set, someone who can actually slow things down and let the jokes breathe. Instead, it's just wall-to-wall jokes and the delivery is thrown off to the point where the viewer struggles to keep up with the action. Do we really need both anchors to basically become main characters in a show that isn't about them?
↵I'm all for a good absurdist point of view, but if everyone has them, it just loses some of it's sting. Shows have had worse first seasons and rebounded to become really good. The Simpsons, to name one. But at this point, SportsDome has a lot of issues to overcome, and I can't say I'm optimistic.
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