TV review: Stars on the wane

Danny McBride's Kenny is a hero for the unreconstructed bloke. Photo / Supplied

Getting down with the Brown last Friday night proved to be a somewhat sober experience.

The Jaquie Brown Diaries struck a comedic chord in its first, award-winning season. All the more disappointing that the second season opener was so short on laughs.

Its return has come accompanied with reminders that we must not confuse its central character, the fame hungry, minor celebrity Jaquie Brown, with the real one, despite the two sharing a name and previous occupation as "light-relief" current affairs reporters. And you really want to believe that's true, as so far, the fictional JB, down on her luck and scrabbling to get back in the fame game is bordering on unpleasant.

The downward spiral of humiliation challenged Brown's acting ability - that Carpet Warehouse infomercial was nowhere near annoying enough - and wasn't very funny either. Antics such as spitting on an angry customer certainly damage the "brand" all right and I'm talking about the show here, not the fictional character.

Our heroine was not helped by being weighed down with some horribly forced lines such as "celebrity is a stain you can't remove" or sitting po-faced in front of a class of primary school children, telling them working on television is "a stupid job in a stupid industry that makes you think you're more important than you really are". It wasn't intended to but sounded way more self-righteous than self-satirising.

There were some fairly hammy set pieces, too, such as the school kids getting rid of her by playing on her vanity and the predictable slapstick as she got entangled with the soft furnishings in a bar.

Far from a fresh start, the show seems stuck in a rut with JB still facing off with her nemesis, the unlikely Serita Singh, on her new job on Radio "Hautaki" (geddit?). The challenge for The JB Diaries is trying to come up with something original out of territory that has been covered so comprehensively and so well. Minor celebrity desperation has been thoroughly explored and exploited for laughs from old movies such as To Die For to the master of excruciating comedy, Ricky Gervais, in Extras.

We can only hope things get funnier and those promised guest appearances from the likes of Kiwi funny man of the moment, Rhys Darby, will perk things up a bit.

There is yet more celebrity desperation on the Comedy Central's new offering Eastbound and Down (see above comment about well-covered territory). Danny McBride plays Kenny Powers, a baseball player whose meteoric rise to major league star has been followed by an equally spectacular crash and burn. He's reduced to working as a PE teacher in his old home town but still has the "I'm a big star" attitude.

If you're a fan of Outrageous Fortune and missing all that hard-out Westie culture already this could be the show for you. Because it's on a pay channel, there are plenty of unedited expletives and pick-up lines never to be repeated in a family publication.

This is definitely one for the unreconstructed blokes who find hilarious scenes such as Kenny ordering hookers and certain sexual acts over the phone from his brother's family living room or hooning around on his large and lurid jet-ski with a topless babe behind. Yes, this is bogan-ville, American style, which means absolutely no holds barred. Even the mullets are vast and shiny.

But bigger isn't always better. I found Eastbound and Down made brand Jaquie Brown look funnier and more subtle by the minute.