"State of the Union" (2008)TV series

Creator:

Tracey Ullman

Seasons:

1

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Tracey Ullman's satirical look at life in America today.

Cast

Peter Strauss	...	Narrator (5 episodes, 2008)
Liz Fenley	...	Lynn Spears (2 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Allan McKeown Presents

Ullman is such a talent that this shallow, laugh-free excuse is beneath her.

Network: Showtime; Genre: Sketch Comedy; Content Rating: TV-14 (for some strong language and scatological humor); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Seasons Reviewed: 1 season

America is a weird and funny place… apparently. Unlike other countries in the world it is filled with simple farm folk, hypocritical celebrities, vein or fear mongering news anchors, philandering businessmen and a cultural clash of many races, ethnicities and nationalities. Look out.

Do I need to say that Tracey Ullman is a brilliant comic talent? She's an unbelievable chameleon, slipping in impressions of celebrities Renee Zellwegger to David Beckhem, along with original characters like security screener Shannell (feeling like a 15 year old reject from "In Living Color") and a borderline offensive pharmacist who bursts into a Bollywood musical number to explain a medication's side-effects. "Tracey Ullman's State of the Union" takes us around the United States in quick 1 -3 minute sketch segments for a day. It's a one-woman band for Ullman who spends most of the screen time mugging for the camera.

Yet, there isn't a single laugh to be found in "State of the Union". A clunky, unimaginative affair, it's more a masturbatory excuse for Ullman to put on a goofy costume and let us marvel at what a great impersonator she is. That's all it is, an impersonation. She isn't Phil Hendrie creating characters. They come in, tell their joke and leave. Then they tell the exact same joke in subsequent episodes without expanding on them. The same one-note jokes over and over.

The would-be satirical comedy falls in line with the Ullman's vapid costume act. She isn't satirizing any particular element of America, just shallow little inconsequential idiosyncrasies that have no effect on anything and everybody has already noticed. Broad comedy is the name of the game here with every gag thrown up in your face with giant neon blinking lights framing it. Renee Zelwegger suffers from "Narcisistic Squint" (ok…), liberal environmentalists (in the form of Laurie David of all people) are hypocrites who fly around in private jets (wake me when it's over), news anchors are trying to scare you (and…). She does an impression of Paulie from The Sopranos now branching out into independent film and still acting like a mobster. Shannell runs a man through her luggage x-ray to check his medical health. Prescription medication can have ghastly medical side effects! Arianna Huffington is one of the strangest and most ripe for a parody of Tracey's collection of personalities. Huffington is a goon and her blog is a joke, but Tracey can only think to make Huffington arrogant over what a great blogger she is.

The episodes have no theme threading the segments together, randomly bouncing around the country from one impression to the next without letting any of the segments flesh out or come to any comic boil. It would have required some effort and intricate story construction to pick a theme, and use her characters to delve into that. Now that would have been fun. Americans pull themselves apart satirically on TV all the time (mostly in animated shows) in a little bit of irony often lost on the rest of the TV watching world, far better than Ullman does here.

Even so, I'm not asking that Tracey Ullman be Ira Glass or Michael Patrick King. I'm asking for laughs - one laugh - which should not be difficult for a talent like Tracey. This befuddling, head-slapping, eye-rolling, shrill, mess of a sketch series is not the slightest bit funny. It's 30 of the longest minutes on TV inspiring us to count down with the on-screen time marks until this day in the life of America and it's people comes to an end.

* / 4