This is of course car crash TV, appallingly bad, and the stupidest idea imaginable: giving a US front man job to someone whose shtick is the British fat man jack the lad which simply would be incomprehensible to a US audience.
Yet strangely my wife and I keep watching it, not just for the fascination of watching someone wobble on a high wire before crashing and burning, but because Corden is trying extremely hard to make it work. The effort he puts into the song and dance routines and skits is genuinely worthy of applause, even if the results do not make me laugh or stop me cringing, and I'm sure don't translate to American viewers.
There's also something touching about Corden trying to be an interviewer, a task for which he is incredibly unsuited. The fact that he has none of the Wogan-esque skills required for this can actually make the exchanges quite charming, because there's no artifice, just three embarassed celebs (usually very minor ones) reacting to Corden's random questions while trying to plug their wares.
I think overall watching these episodes makes us feel protective of Corden, wanting to save him from this nightmare of drowning in a hostile culture for which he is entirely unprepared. It's the empathy we'd feel for any foreigner in a strange and rather callous land, combined with the knowledge that we are watching someone's public humiliation and career suicide after ten previous years of relative British success with fairly decent material (Gavin & Stacey was good enough work to make me want to spare him this fate).
Yet strangely my wife and I keep watching it, not just for the fascination of watching someone wobble on a high wire before crashing and burning, but because Corden is trying extremely hard to make it work. The effort he puts into the song and dance routines and skits is genuinely worthy of applause, even if the results do not make me laugh or stop me cringing, and I'm sure don't translate to American viewers.
There's also something touching about Corden trying to be an interviewer, a task for which he is incredibly unsuited. The fact that he has none of the Wogan-esque skills required for this can actually make the exchanges quite charming, because there's no artifice, just three embarassed celebs (usually very minor ones) reacting to Corden's random questions while trying to plug their wares.
I think overall watching these episodes makes us feel protective of Corden, wanting to save him from this nightmare of drowning in a hostile culture for which he is entirely unprepared. It's the empathy we'd feel for any foreigner in a strange and rather callous land, combined with the knowledge that we are watching someone's public humiliation and career suicide after ten previous years of relative British success with fairly decent material (Gavin & Stacey was good enough work to make me want to spare him this fate).
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