Gay TV Recap: Last Comic Standing

I've long had a love/hate relationship with Last Comic Standing, a show I like in theory but usually quit watching before the finals begin. This season managed to grab me, however, by featuring some really compelling comics in the auditions, including out comedian Sabrina Matthews (a longtime favorite who was, sadly, eliminated in the semi-finals) and some new discoveries like Gina Yashere and gay comic Richard Rider (who frustratingly didn't make it past the auditions).

Last night's episode featured a challenge titled "Speed Laughter" where each comic had to sit in a booth with a person and get them to laugh within a minute before moving to the next booth. While the comics were told to expect a Deal or No Deal model in each of the six booths, four of them were replaced with a drag queen (namely Jackie Beat), a nun, a children's party clown and... well, for some reason they didn't have time to show who the last surprise was.

Impressively, the show avoided portraying its drag queen twist as a freak to laugh at but as an unexpected point of view. In the last challenge, the comics were made to quickly come up with material for a Medieval Times audience and the three surprise guests turned out to be another challenge about adapting their humor for an audience they weren't expecting.

The first comic to go up, Ralph Harris bombed with the two models and burst into laughter at the sight of Beat. With Harris unable to stop laughing, Beat finally deadpanned "I'm glad you're laughing. I'm not." Harris, a comic who's material has struck me as pretty run-of-the-mill, is the only one who to be disrespectful to the surprise guests, later telling another comic that they're "the kind of people I normally make fun of."

Best Week Ever regular Doug Benson also seemed to flounder through the challenge, even though he manages to make me laugh from my couch. When Beat took out a banana to snack on, Benson started flirting with her -- only to get a rather funny cold stare in return. Heh, Benson and Beat weren't laughing but the uncomfortable glances worked on me. Benson got a similar reaction in the next room where he told the nun a sex joke. Again, funny if you're not in the room. Lavell Crawford turns out to be the only comic we see making Beat laugh -- as soon as he enters the room he reacts "I've got all your albums, Kiss."

The most amusing failure came from Gerry Dee who expected to repeat a routine about a girls' night out in each booth. Dee, apparently hoping that a drag queen would empathize with the experiences of straight women, bombed when he tried to repeat the routine with Beat. Dee's joke ends with a comment about how such events usually end up with one girl crying, with Dee yelling "Jennifer's down!" in a high pitched voice. While that got the Deal or No Deal models laughing, Beat reacted by asking, "Who's Jennifer?"

Unfortunately, by the episode's end I was back to feeling frustrated with the show. When Last Comic Standing got to its final ten, there were five comics I really enjoyed watching. Now, I've only got Amy Schumer to cheer for.