The Soup
The Soup
| 01 July 2004 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 13
  • 12
  • 11
  • 10
  • 9
  • 8
  • 7
  • 6
  • 5
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • Reviews
    mg75535

    I honestly can't believe E canceled this show after TWELVE years to make room for what? more sex and the city reruns? more Kardashian spins offs? This show was HYSTERICAL. You get to see the funny parts of shows you actually have no interest in watching (the bachelor, etc) with the added bonus of Joel McHale's hilarious commentary. I'm desperately hoping that someone will start a campaign to get Netflix to pick up the soup. The did it with Chelsea Handler, so Netflix, if you're reading this pick up the soup!!

    ... View More
    clahners

    I don't watch a lot of TV, except for The Office, Weeds, Entourage and E!'s Soup. I think I hold this show in good company.I love the scathing review of pop culture that this show gives. Soup also helps me stay on top of what people in the office are referring to when talking about a Sanjaya or Heidi Montag (sp?).The best part is that Soup shows clips of the highlights of these shows, which are usually the funniest or most controversial moments (c'mon, most people get hooked into watching American Idol because of the freak show that are the auditions), which is why most people claim to watch. And that means, I don't have to suffer through the other 98% of these mind numbing talk shows or "reality" shows, for one nugget of "funny" or "shock." The only reason why Soup doesn't get a 10 in my opinion are sometime the sketches are not that funny, and on an even rarer occasion, the commentary isn't always up to par. But they can't all be home runs either, if so, Soup wouldn't be on E!.Joel's quick wit and Soup's writing team (which includes McHale) make for a great show. I happen to enjoy the laughing and comments from the crew who are off-camera. Even when they're being blatantly obvious by giving occasional courtesy laughs, it's hilarious because it IS forced. They're obviously being ironic. And that's part of what makes this show funny.

    ... View More
    D_Burke

    How this show has stayed on for more than three years is beyond me. I don't know who these other members are who voted this show with eight or more stars. I respect their decisions, and believe they are entitled to their own opinion. However, I have yet to see one funny episode of this show. I have caught it on E! from time to time, but haven't been able to get through ten minutes of the show.I was a fan of the original Talk Soup, at least when John Henson was hosting. I didn't have cable when Greg Kinnear was hosting the show, but I thought later hosts like Hal Sparks and Aisha Tyler did a good job as well. Unlike Joel McHale, the host they have now for this show, the hosts I just mentioned didn't try too hard to be funny. They just were funny naturally.Joel McHale just comes off to me as the cocky high school jock who just trashes other people because he has nothing more intelligent to say. The audience laughter, which I frankly think is canned, pre-recorded laughter (although it may not be), appears to be added as almost too desperate an attempt to fish laughs out of its audience. This laughter is added almost as if to say, "This is funny, audience! Laugh! Now! Why aren't you laughing!?!" I remember John Henson not having an audience most of the time. He really didn't need one. Plus, unlike Joel McHale, Henson was great because he often poked fun at himself. McHale just comes off to me as aloof, presumptuous, and above all, not funny. Additionally, there's nothing McHale can say about Angelina Jolie or Paris Hilton that Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, and Jon Stewart hasn't already said.Again, I understand that comedy is very subjective, and I respect the opinions of everyone who likes this show. However, I hate it, I think it needs a major face-lift if it will be lucky enough to last two more years, and I'm sticking to my post.

    ... View More
    MisterWhiplash

    The Soup has become one of those nifty little pleasures of cable TV for me recently. To say that it's a guilty pleasure might be a little hard to say, as it is basically just a summary of all of the weird, crazy, delirious, whatever-you-call-it, and plain bad and near offensive TV of the past week. So to say it's a guilty pleasure would mean that it's sort of wrong on a level to watch the show, hard to admit. But the whole program is like a full-on pop culture version with a little more goofiness of what the Daily Show does in its first eight or nine minutes of reviewing clips. It's satire, though of a fairly low denomination where very cheap graphics, sometimes lame jokes, and lots of tongue placed in as many firm cheeks as possible end up squeezing out jokes. It's hosted by Joel McHale in a very smarmy, sarcastic manner, but he makes it work for what it's worth, and one becomes sort of adjusted to what his shtick is after a while.Ironically, McHale has his work cut out for him, because the clips are sometimes very funny on their own, without really a word or gesture or gag to add to it. Reality Show clip-time, Chat Stew ("so meaty"), What the Kids Are Watching, and Clip of the Week are among the regulars, and in this dire swamp of pop culture and other TV- sometimes stretching to international lengths with Spanish soap operas and inexplicable Japanese shows- is never-ending. If anything as time goes on, there's almost too much to choose from. There are new categories created each week by McHale and his writers, two of them being funny by themselves in just having no other choice but to make fun of where the Soup itself broadcasts from- the E network (Lets Take Some E! is one new segment, as well as a whole list of those un-Godly tabloid TV shows like E.T. and Access Hollywood). It's basically a fun way to spend half an hour on a Friday night or Saturday morning, and as someone who doesn't really watch much TV and tries, sometimes without success, to avoid bad TV even when it's ironically good or horrific celebrities and people on reality shows I shouldn't give a damn about, it's a great little treat.

    ... View More