Drunk History Season 5 Premiere, ‘Heroines’
Derek Waters talks to Padget Brewster about the first women to take a bullet for America (played by Evan Rachel Wood), Tiffany Haddish about a French museum curator (played by Busy Phillips) who helped The Monuments Men, and Amber Ruffin about Civil War hero Clara Barton (played by Mandy Moore).
Reliable seems like an odd adjective to describe a show, but it perfectly describes Comedy Central’s Drunk History.
No matter what season you watch from this series, no matter how many times you’ve seen an episode or not, you can count on one thing — it’s going to make you laugh.
The formula for the series is simple — Derek Waters interviews a drunk comedian about a certain person, or event in history, and famous people (and the Drunk History regulars) act out the story. There’s really been no real deviation from this concept for the previous four seasons, and when Season 5 kicked off last night, it was pretty much status quo.
Sure, having red-hot comedian Tiffany Haddish was a big “get” for the series, as were the additions of Mandy Moore, Evan Rachel Wood, and Alexander Skarsgård. However, none of this was a massive game changing addition. If you’ve seen one Drunk History episode, you know exactly what you’re getting here.
Now, were the performances fantastic? You bet. Were the narrations absurdly wonderful? Oh indeed they were (Amber Ruffin stole the show). You should go watch this episode, it’s great.
However, it’s no different than any other episode of this show…and that’s perfectly okay.
Drunk History is a sketch comedy series with a formula that is both simple and effective. The narrators are (mostly) different each time, as is the guest cast. So, you’re getting a new spin on the same formula every week. And that’s why this is one of the most reliable shows on television. You’re getting entertained every single week. There’s laughs abounding — whether they’re pie-in-the-face obvious, or something extremely subtle. The brilliance of this show is the commitment of the guest stars, and the absurdity of the narrators. It’s excellence lies in its simplicity.
Will this formula become stale one day? Maybe. But who cares? This show is great, and it never lets you down.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
