LAST EDITED ON 06-15-06 AT 05:25 PM (EST)

Okay -- five contestants who were pre-picked by the judges before the comedy portion of the evening ever began down, five to go. Once again, we're going to watch twenty semifinalists perform. And once again, the amount of talent, skill, timing, and the quality of the material they display during their performance will have absolutely nothing to do with whether they get picked or not. I repeat for the naive: they are not looking for comedy. They are looking for drama. Our so-called 'celebrity talent scouts', who are the exact same three as the previous show, and if you want to know who they are, there's an episode summary around here somewhere -- they have nothing to do with who gets onto the ship and who goes home. Everyone getting onto the ship was picked before they ever reached this stage. All the 'celebrity talent scouts' have to do is ask dumb questions, embarrass themselves in public, and have another round of booze.

And yet, we're going to summarize Travesty, Part II anyway.

Why? Because demographics are dangerous. Because when you're running a competition that's supposed to be based on talent, saying 'We need one of these, two of those, three sob stories, one person people have vaguely heard of, two complete jerks, a lot of VH1 commentators, and don't forget the minority guy' is a crime. But mostly, because some of these people are funny. And most of those will be the ones who don't reach the ship. As such, you should be told their names and a little about their performances, so you can see why they're funny. Why they should have made it to the next stage. And, most of all, why you should go out and see them the next time they're near your town, because at the rate this thing is going, local support is all the best have to look forward to. Unless they go through extensive plastic surgery, because the ship really needs a transgender. They won't even have to perform if the auditions take place while they're recovering. All they have to do is show up...

One more time: the skill of the comedian has nothing to do with whether they were pre-chosen or not. The skin color, age, region of birth, descent lines, gender, relative appearance, and demographic appeal does.

Are we ready? Has the point been brought home? Has an element of reality been introduced into 'reality'? Do you think you can still laugh after getting that little truth stuck in your head?

No?

Well, now you know why a fourth season was a really bad idea. Roll opening credits.

And we're back at the historical Alex theater in Los Angeles, which is historically known for ruining halfway-decent reality shows forever and ever until new producers do arrive, although historically, we're talking about 'last week'. Here is our host, and I still don't really know who he is, nor do I care. However, I was recently informed that he was one of the judges -- when the show still thought it could get away with calling them 'judges' -- for the running joke that was the selection of the Season #2 cast, so he really should have known better than to get involved again. Do you see Drew Carey here? No. Do you see Brett Butler here? No. Why? Because Drew hasn't sold out and Brett is far too busy slipping into a coma at a poker table in New Orleans, and by the way, Doug E. Doug just folded A-Q offsuit pre-flop again. But this guy is back, because you can have him for the price of a movie rental and it's really fun to fold him back into the envelope afterwards. He has sold out, and he did it through the dollar store. Plus you got change, so he's really a bargain, or feels like one until you realize he isn't worth anything and you just got totally ripped off. But at least he doesn't eat much. He certainly doesn't think or speak on his own. Dance, parrot. Dance.

Our 'celebrity talent scouts' have not sold out. Garry has not sold out because Garry does not know where he is. Tim has not sold out because Tim is aware of his current market value after a failed SNL movie and he didn't actually charge anything. And Kathy has not sold out because she's a reality TV addict and she just wants to be on another show. You can't blame the disease, right?

Our comedians have not sold out, either. They didn't know they'd been precast or pre-eliminated before they got onto the stage, right? They're just here to try and be funny and win their place. They don't know funny has nothing to do with that goal -- right?

Well, there is the one who's basically been playing the 'old broad' demographics card since the second she first saw Bob & Ross...

Okay, some of them have sold out. And now we doubly know who's gonna make the ship.

The host engages in mindless blabber for a while, none of which is worth listening to, much less repeating. We get the idea, okay? Five comedians per segment, and then the unseen network executives will reveal who they decided would round out the Ten well before we got here. And then we go to the ship, a few other summarizers take over from there, and I never have to deal with this farce again. Whee. Let's just get to the performances already, shall we? When your parole date finally comes around, the last thing you want to do is stall on the packing. (Oh, look! It's my first shiv! I remember when Willie showed me how to make this out of a roll of toilet paper...)

Gabriel Iglesias: The First Comic Chosen at the first audition session is also the first comic out on stage, and is probably going to be the first one boarding the ship tonight because he fulfills two demographic needs at once: minority male and overweight. It's like getting Dat and Ralphie together in one convenient package that wouldn't be trying to constantly suicide out of self-loathing! It helps that his routine is mildly amusing, although it heavily relies on stereotypes -- his favorite people to kid are cops because he's a minority male in Los Angeles who apparently suffers from a death wish. He got pulled over for making a wrong turn out of Krispy Kreme, spent his time waiting for the officer to arrive at the driver's door by essentially giving his donuts extensive foreplay -- this is a PG-13 site and I can't go any further than that for the imagery here -- then, when the officer asked if he knew why he'd been pulled over, invoked The Rule Of Calories. He made a cop-donut joke. Oh. Gee. How -- original. And then in a confessional-tell filmed just offstage, he said he wanted to get on the ship because his mother wouldn't have to steal cable to see him -- followed by an imitation of his mother, using a heavy accent. Apparently we stirred in just a little too much Dat.

Kristin Key: Not as good as her initial audition: she makes fun of her own figure (tall and thin) by openly wishing for a rear that she can shake at the dance club 'like a baby that won't -- stop -- crying!', then says that sleeping with her is like being with a bag of coat hangers, although there is a chance that the hangers would be quieter. Garry, who still doesn't know where he is, decides to advise Kristin on her performance style by telling her to give the coat hanger line to a boyfriend. Kristin tells him that's where it originated, plus that same person told her that nude, she looked like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Garry laughs and laughs and laughs while trying to cover up that he has no idea what The Simpsons is, but he will ask his good friends OJ and Nicole when he gets home. Kristin gets off the stage before Garry can come up with even more constructive advice, like 'jump over a shark on a motorcycle'. We all know how well that one worked!

Moody McCarthy: Nothing special. He ran into a record store to escape an L.A. monsoon, saw a guy buying a 'Sounds Of Rain' CD, and told him that if he liked that, he should go outside and see the band live. He recently got a phone that can download music, but the only tunes he ever hears are when the thing breaks and he gets put on hold with the service rep. (And what is he calling them with? We don't know. We -- don't -- know.) Plus it worries him when he downloads a program and his computer asks him what he wants to open it with. A computer asking the user computer-related questions: very worrisome. We've heard all this before, and we've heard it with better timing. Given the tendencies displayed so far by our hidden network executives, this would seem to make Moody an absolute lock, but which demographic need does he fit? He's male, and -- and -- well, that's it. So long, Moody. But remember: forty thousand dollars in surgery, and Season #5 is yours!

Ty Barnett: Very short exert: the U.S. government should have known that Hurricane Katrina was possible and how to deal with it because they should have been watching more movies. Also, the way Social Security currently works -- give them some money now and you'll probably never see it again -- reminds him of a pimp taking cash from a prostitute. No Security, it's just Social. 'Good luck, be-yotch!' The audience seems to appreciate this. The network executives appreciate the fact that they have two whole black males to choose from. While it means they have to actually make a choice instead of saying 'Okay, that's the only one we could bring ourselves to find: cast him', it also means their chances of being sued for discrimination just dropped by twenty percent. Sadly, funny people are not recognized as their own race, except by people who never get the jokes and want them all exterminated. For further details, please see your aunt. You know which one I mean.

Nikki Payne: In c-t, our professional lisper tells us she's willing to hurt herself to get onto the ship. (This is actually an amazing coincidence, because having watched her audition routine, I'm willing to hurt myself if she gets onto the ship.) She's certainly willing to demonstrate for the cameras, because she brings a roll of duct tape out to the stage. She doesn't use it immediately. She starts by talking about losing a job as a phone sex operator because of her lisp (and while there's probably a lisp fetish out there, good luck finding the one office staffing those lines), plus she doesn't like Jerry Springer because she's trailer trash and she's sick of him showing women who display their breasts when they get mad as a means of resolving the argument. She then demonstrates why this doesn't work. And sure enough, it doesn't work. And then the duct tape comes into play. Apparently she read that you're supposed to use it to shift the position of your breasts under your clothes. (Um... no. You use strong clear with an option for double-sided in certain areas, and you use something with low removal residue, which duct tape does not have. The last thing you want to be stuck doing (so to speak) is taking a sixteen-hour shower after you get home, with the strategically-placed assistance of sandpaper. In fact, here's a really helpful hint: get a better bra.) She demonstrates on top of her demented Catholic-schoolgirl uniform. She then goes on to reason that if this works in one place, it would be ideal for crows' feet and double chins. Following this logic, she wraps the tape around her head. And poses. While I am now very afraid that Nikki will get onto the ship and women everywhere will be stuck with skin abrasions and missing patches of hair, Kathy partially saves the day by asking how Nikki gets the tape out of her hair, and Nikki provides the answer: yank. (OW!) Garry, who thinks he's floating through the air on a bed of morphine, notes that Nikki really seems to have a lisp. Also that she took all the things that were wrong with her and, instead of fixing them, went into comedy. And Garry took all the things that were wrong with him and, sadly, became a 'celebrity talent scout'. But it could be worse. He could have the power to pick who's moving on in this show. The network executives are bad enough, but can you imagine who Garry would select? We'd probably be stuck with the shark.

(End of first segment. The mood-killing shots of the waiting room return from last week's show -- the air is so heavy that any attempt to actually push through it raises enough friction to burn down Los Angeles -- we go to commercial, and when we finally get back from our gasps of something remotely gaseous, we get to see:)

Malik S.: Oh, thank gawd: actual funny. He's of Haitian descent and hates the stereotype that all Haitians do voodoo because he can't do it so well. He wishes he could, because he wouldn't be paying $2.85.9 a gallon for gas. A little powder and 'Poof! -- eight cents!' He put twenty dollars' worth in his truck the other day and couldn't even get the radio to come on. Gas is so expensive, it's even hit drive-by gang shootings. 'What if we miss? I gotta come back around!' Now, Ralphie May doomed himself on Finals Night for Season #1 with a routine about cheap gas, but apparently Malik A. isn't afraid of jinxes and B. knows better than to stand in front of an audience and yell about blowing people up, at least once it hits the voting stage. Right now, the gas prices in this country are classic tragicomedy, and Malik has tapped into a fundamental truth. Normally, he would have no chance to make the ship -- but as luck would have it, he's a minority male! Excellent planning on his part, don't you think? Here's hoping...

Brendon Walsh: He wishes his high school teachers had had sex with him. I wish his parents hadn't had sex with each other.

Josh McDermitt: The surprise standout at the Arizona auditions and the equally surprising face-first landing onto spike-filled cement here. He starts by saying he likes to practice catch-and-release fishing. Hook the fish, pose with the fish, release the fish. Also, catch-and-release hunting. Shoot the deer, pose with the deer, release the deer. Now, apply this to dating, where you start by shooting a woman... Telling half the audience that your idea of a come-on line is a thin gray measurement of gunpowder and you lose the audience vote-in that's still in effect from last week -- and this time, there isn't even a marked card to fight against. Fail to meet any demographics by being a white guy from Arizona, and you're out. The fact that your jokes didn't really work is secondary. We'll probably see him again next season, and he'll probably go out in the semifinals there, too. Josh is not going to have the transcontestant surgery. For some strange reason, I suspect he's afraid of knives.

Bruce Fine: Starts with a height joke by noting that yes, the comedians will get shorter as the evening goes on (he's 5'1"), then goes into a routine that I think I've heard before from someone else: the whole 'people pigging out on supermarket food samples' bit. While he's pretty good at doing the one who has to act their way into the line -- 'What is that you're cooking? -- bread? Bread.', the rest of the material is tired and overdone. Admittedly, he still makes it work pretty well, but originality counts around here. And by that, I mean 'with me'. Not with the network executives, but somewhere, sometime, in a place that has no effect on this whatsoever, at least until they see the sales for their next Mid-Atlantic show. See you there, Bruce! Or, in this case, not.

Rebecca Corry: And migawd, the comedians will get shorter as the evening goes on. Rebecca is 4'11", and wants everyone to know it. Now, I'm intimately familiar with 4'11". 4'11" has been a height of mine. 4'11" and I remain on speaking terms. And I know that if you, like Rebecca, are 4'11", you generally do not have trouble finding a blouse that covers your entire torso, because you're shopping in the preteen department and guess what? It's gonna fit. In fact, for most 4'11" types who insist on going for big girl clothes, the problem is getting one that doesn't cover you down to the knees. Naturally, there are exceptions to this, and one of them is Rebecca. If you happen to be her, you show the audience your stomach every time you move. Or think about moving. Or do it on purpose, but that's only ninety percent of the time. The routine is forgettable, ignorable, and centers around losing control of her bowels while working out. Whee. After this, she has a quick chat with the judges where she reveals that she went into comedy because she hates herself, and follows this up with a long, boring story about having gone trick-or-treating at Garry Marshall's house, which is a blatant attempt to suck up to the judges on an ineffective scale that we've never seen before. It's also a lie, because when Garry was in his prime, he did what all producers do and shot anyone who got within fifty feet of his front door, which was a grand total of 'zero' because no one had the endurance to get up the twelve-mile driveway in the first place. So far, Rebecca has not been funny. Rebecca has been annoying. Luckily for her, 'annoying' equals 'fake drama', so she's got a chance. Now, if the executive producers are just treating 'short' as a demographic...

(End of the second segment. The happiness level in the waiting room has actually managed to drop, possibly because no one can get rid of the image showing Rebecca, the gym, and the interesting stains on the equipment. There's a commercial break to allow vigorous brain-scrubbing, and then we move on to:)

Jon Fisch: Not bad: the first part of his routine is a mildly creative bit about how labeling your luggage is exceptionally stupid when it gets stolen, because now the thief knows where you live and, thank to possessing your Palm Pilot, that you'll be away from home for two weeks. The standard 'I think this vicious about my girlfriend and then say 'I love you'.' part doesn't do anything to help his cause, but it's clear that he's got some material tucked away that could make him a stronger performer in a longer set. However, whether he can choose the good bits to fit a quick session is another question entirely. Also an irrelevant one. Next?

Bil Dwyer: C-t admits that if he makes the ship, he's either going to be the kindly caretaker of the rose garden -- or the total Dicque. The network executives want a Dicque and a half, so the most experienced comedian in the group is now free to phone in his routine. And does. Bil opens his mouth, and the tape jumps ahead one minute. And that was it. I rewound it, got to where he'd just come out on stage -- sixty seconds lost, just like that. I did this seven times and finally gave up because the pillow pattern was starting to emboss itself on my right cheek. I was going to save the tape because I have a week-long slugfest with insomnia every month or two, but what good does it do me to get one minute of sleep at a time? It's not as if I'm in politics...

Stella Stolper: She's still pregnant. And in a further display of consistency, she's still not funny. Basically, she comes out, insults her husband three times -- he just wants to shop at CostCo, he's not the father of the child, and she hates having sex with him -- and leaves. Stella wants to be Roseanne. She wants to be Roseanne so badly that if you look very closely at her face, you can see where she's traced her stage makeup into the dotted lines for the inevitable plastic surgery. I want her gone so badly, I'm rooting for premature labor, and not because I want anything to happen to her child, but because there's a very large chance that a one second-old baby would be funnier than she is. Barring this, I want the kid to start kicking her. Now. And not stop for three months. Hey, small one -- see that in front of your foot? That's called a 'bladder'. Aim...

Mike Bocchetti: Oh, no... he's gone Hollywood... The biggest head in show business has ditched the glasses he wore during the audition, and the effect is as if Clark Kent had stepped into an ancient phone booth and come out looking like David Daskal. A green, glowing David Daskal, made entirely of Kryptonite. Mike has somehow managed to suck all the comedy strength from himself. Without the glasses, his timing is off. Without the glasses, the punchlines fall flat. Without the glasses, he changes from a prospective imp into a sad child who's looking for a laugh from the school bullies because if they laugh hard enough, they might forget to beat him up for a day, or at least hit softer. And why do I keep saying 'Without the glasses'? Because I'm really hoping that's the reason he failed. I'd hate to think he just froze up in front of a large audience and lost his skills for three minutes. *sigh* Come back next year, Mike. And no makeovers.

Gerry Dee: Apparently it's the official 'depress the summarizer' segment. During the audition show, I called Gerry a storyteller in Dave Mordal's mode: the kind of comedian who can make you smile in two minutes and put you on the ground with diaphragm convulsions in an hour. For the little time he's got, he talks about majoring in kinesiology -- 'Gym' -- in college, then winding up as a twelve-grade history teacher when he'd never even taken twelve-grade history as a course, and getting through the year by staying two pages ahead of the students. Plus whenever someone asked him a question he didn't know the answer to, he'd go down the 'so you think you know everything?' road and assign them to look up the answer and explain it to the class the next day. As comedy goes, this is a great warm-up and you can see where if he just had a little more time, he could build up to a killer punchline that would collapse the historic Alex theater into equally historic rubble -- but what does he have? Three minutes. And we don't even see all of that. So long, Gerry. Feel free to drop by the next time you've got a free full hour. *sigh* He told the 'celebrity talent scouts' that he spent his whole first year of teaching in lying. Ninety-five percent of my teachers did that, I finally found one who would admit it, and they won't bring the most honest person in the universe onto the (censored) ship...

(End of third segment. This gives me just enough time to finish a very brief depressive fit and send another round of anonymous hate mail off to every English teacher I've ever had, liars and jerks and (multiply censored) that they were, are, and will die as, hopefully soon, and still get back to catch:)

Flip Schultz: (Apparently I should have slowed down a little.) He loves Latina women. And leprosy. And wasting a minute of my time. Latina women now hate him. I hated him coming into this. But if he wants to run off and start a love affair with leprosy, more power to him. And possibly a lot less body mass. *shrugs* I dunno. People just have some weird interests... Anyone wanna Google for the leprosy fetish? No? Me either. Let's move on.

Michelle Balan: Reminds us in c-t that she's old. That's right, she's old. Well, not really. She's old for Hollywood. Anything over twenty-five qualifies for immediate Social Security payout, if your pimp hasn't grabbed most of it. But Michelle is playing the demographics card for all it's worth -- everything -- and thus, she gives us an extra reminder that she's old. And then she goes out on stage and shows us something really old: her jokes. The first one has a familiar ring to it -- her New York apartment is the size of a coffin, so when she goes, she's ready -- and then there's just two more: voices in her head, and High Alert to her means she can't be high and on alert at the same time. Kathy asks her if she writes her own material. Michelle reminds us she's old. Garry, who may be temporarily occupying our plane of reality, asks her how long she's been performing. YOU FOOL! The answer to that question is 'She's old!' You set her up! No wonder you had two of the leading comedies of the 70s! You have no sense of timing whatsoever! I'm looking at next season's ABC lineup, and I just realized you're still working today! Oh, and by the way? Michelle is old! Thank you for asking! Ye gawds. Who's up next?

J. Chris Newberg: C-t compares being on LCS in the semifinals to making the Final Four at the NCAA tourney: it doesn't matter what you've done in your career up until now, just hit the free throws. And he starts out promisingly, coming out with a guitar to play a folk song on, although he wishes he was a rapper, because rappers don't fear anything -- 'except Spellcheck' -- then goes into a syrupy, sickeningly-sweet song about children that must be going somewhere both wonderful and horrible or he wouldn't be spending so much time on it. As it turns out, I'm half-right. It goes into an ancient routine about kids bothering people on an airplane that's older than Michelle and doesn't gain a thing from the modernization attempt of trying to turn the kid into a terrorist suspect. By the way, that sound you just heard off the rim is generally known as 'Clang'.

Dan Levy: (The last of the five comedians not seen during the audition show.) He's young, he's Jewish, he has a nice sense of style when it comes to his glasses but none with his clothes because this is neither Seattle nor 1997, and he's not getting onto the ship. That's all you need to know. Sure, his dramatized entrance into the store to buy condoms because he's having sex and that's worth celebrating is kind of funny. And there's a glimmer of humor in the observation that the only way to make catching his girlfriend cheating on him worse would have been to get back into the car and find his radio station playing Creed. But he's not making it. Maybe if he'd spent six or seven confessionals yelling 'I'm young!'

Doug Benson: I love metahumor. I melt for self-referential digs that work on multiple levels. I can be inspired to wave pieces of clothing at the stage for anything that gets into the roots of a genre, style, or concept, then exposes them to air for all to see. And as such, I fall for Doug's comedy within ten seconds of his arrival on stage. He's been working on his segues, he tells us. The natural fades that carry comedians from one joke to another. He's been practicing them hard. He wants the audience to note not only his punchlines, but the words that divide them. And with this said, he proceeds to tell some jokes -- and the jokes barely matter. What matters is that he's using the most obvious, painful, obnoxious far-fetched segues sensible people would stop just short of imagining -- and, thanks to that advance warning, they're the funniest thing to happen on stage all night. The 'celebrity talent scouts', two of whom are awake enough to see what's going on directly in front of them, are falling out of their chairs with laughter. (This is not an exaggeration: Tim nearly takes a header to the floor.) And when the routine has the sheer glorious gall to end on 'A baby ate my dingo!', then in any honest comedy competition, you're in. So let's all say goodbye to Doug now, and promise to see him when he's in town, and watch him on VH1, where he'll be commenting during Best Week Ever, and yes, I just gave him a plug, sue me. For now, all twenty of our comedians have performed, and it's time to see which demographic slots the network executives chose to fill before they ever got here. Ready? Set? Depressed into the ground? I can't blame you. The commercials run, the host thanks the 'celebrity talent scouts' for drinking so much tonight, congratulates the audience for being extra-special and better than the first show's audience even though the multiple shots into the seats have repeatedly shown that both shows were filmed on the same night, and then we find out that the ship will soon be welcoming:

Gabriel Iglesias. (He's 'fluffy'! He's Hispanic! He fulfills the stereotype that 'fluffy' guys are funny! And he's also the audience vote-through! (I guess the card doesn't have to be marked when it's the size of a barn door.) Deserves to be here, but I wasn't expecting him to be the vote-in. Then again, since he deserves to be here, I wasn't expecting him to be here.)
Bil Dwyer. (Because he promised to be the Dicque. Also because he apparently promised not to be remotely funny for the entire pre-ship marathon. Plus he's got some negatives somewhere, and I really, really wish I had them too, and could use them to keep him off this show...)
Michelle Balan. (Special note: she does not use a walker to get back to the stage.)
Stella Stolper. (Because really, talent counts for absolutely nothing. Y'know, this would normally be the moment where I beg for someone to get her out of here before she jokes again, but I'm worried about hurting the kid. Are you sure we can't just induce labor right now?)
Ty Barnett. (Figures. They gave themselves an actual choice, and they picked the one with the weaker semifinal routine. Still, he wasn't horrible during the initial audition, so this isn't the worst of all possible picks. But if they were really saying 'We must have one black guy. Take the funny one,' Malik would have gone through tonight. Instead, they said 'We must have one black guy, and somehow, we brought two with us. Who's got the coin?')

But wait! This has left the ship unbalanced! We're listing heavily to male! There's six XY combos here, and only four XX! This cannot stand because we do live in the most sue-happy nation on the planet and there's people who see those sort of numbers and start to drool, even when you explain that talent is completely meaningless -- actually, then they demand to be on the show -- so guess what? We're taking two more people with us! The host claims that this was because the performances were so strong tonight, they couldn't bear to take only five. That's right. There were some strong performances tonight. Doug and Malik, to name two. And were they picked? No. But still, the network executives can't bear to take only five. And will those next two include Doug and Malik? No. But technically, there must be a way to look at the host's statement where it wouldn't be a lie... By the way, how much change do you think they got for him at the dollar store? I'm thinking ninety-nine cents. And that's before you add the toxic waste removal bonus.

So with all that in mind, let's add:

Kristin Key. (Because wouldn't it be nice to have one woman who was a little bit funny?)
Rebecca Corry. (Because -- because -- because 'short' is now officially recognized as a demographic? And then there's the whole 'annoying' thing... I really want to see the representatives from the short lobby. I should probably start by looking down.)

And that's it. The Ten have become the Twelve. We have our cast, and as promised, laughter was not a factor. They wanted faux drama, and they're going to get it.

Let's review. They said they were looking for the best new comedian in the country. They started off by ignoring the 'new' part, and then they gave us:

The tall, geeky guy whom no one will suspect of being a criminal mastermind.
The semi-attractive redhead whose only function on the show is to wear tight clothing at all times.
The New Yorker. Yo, Brooklyn!
The former drug addict sob story who doubles up as the black female.
The world-class sob story cerebral palsy sufferer who doubles up as a 'The More You Know' announcement.
The big guy who also brings in the Hispanic ratings by the truckload, and insert your own 'bused over the border' joke if you really like being sued into the ground, I won't stop you.
The jerk.
The old one. She's really old. Did she tell you how old she is? Damn old.
The one who isn't even remotely funny in any way -- but she is pregnant!
The black guy. Yeah, that's right. The black guy. I went there. So did they. And they went to the wrong one.
The really thin girl with the short haircut because in recent years, NBC has realized there's a lesbian audience out there and somehow, they think this is going to do the trick. Stoopid NBC.
And the short one, because in the upcoming November elections, the short lobby is going to be a powerful force, especially when they position themselves in front of the polls and make you trip over them and break your neck before you can ever cast a vote.

Well, we wanted funny. And we got it. This is the most laughable job of casting ever.

Hah. Hah. Hah.

Next week: the Twelve move to the ship, Stella calls Ty 'Snoop Dogg', Ty calls Stella 'Ho'sanne', the faux drama gets well and truly flowing, the funny is nowhere in sight, and we get back to ten in a hurry with a double-elimination. Personally, I would have been okay with any number up to and including twelve.

I've been Estee, and the rest of you can take over now. And that's now as in NOW.

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the bathroom throwing up. G'night.

(As before, the ones who should have made it are at http://www.nbc.com/Last_Comic_Standing/voting/ , waiting for you to get them onto the Finals show. Go forth, ye voters, and correct travesty.)