Why Who Is America? is the most disappointing show of the year

Vox

Sacha Baron Cohen's buzzworthy Showtime series, which has its season finale on Sunday after seven episodes, ran out of gas by Episode 4 with recent episodes composed of odds and ends rather than anything particularly incisive or even funny, says Todd VanDerWerff. Why? Because Who Is America? lacked a point of view, which is a key ingredient of all successful comedy. "This is where Who Is America? falls apart, week after week," he says. "Where Da Ali G Show focused on television’s unique ability to enable our worst impulses and Borat was about the underlying horrors of American hospitality, Who Is America? sometimes feels like a scattershot riff on reality television that Cohen half-sketched out in 2005 and then forgot about until a few months ago." He adds: "The weakness of Cohen’s characters might have been negated by a steady stream of high-profile guests, a sort of 'Can you believe that happened?!' who’s who. But the show’s general aesthetic of seeming to have stepped out of 2005 and making only a few minor changes extends even to its treatment of its most familiar targets. It seemed like the show wasn’t even sure why it had Howard Dean talk to Billy Wayne, other than that viewers would recognize the name Howard Dean."