It was like a strike-shortened baseball season. Sure, they determine a winner at the end of it all, but there’ll always be an asterisk. Just what would the asterisk indicate in the LCS record books?

Well, for one, it would note that the contestants (Cast members? Participants? What does one call them?) hardly got a chance to show their stuff. Between goofy competitions (Immunity challenges, in the by now tired lingo of the reality TV genre) and eye-glazing footage of “life inside the house,” there was a bit of actual standup wedged in there. But it was all too brief and it was on that surreal, expansive stage at the Paris in Vegas.

Also, the early stages, where the producers emphasized nutiness rather than standup ability, left a bitter taste which really didn’t go away the entire run of the show, at least not as far as we’re concerned.

And lastly, we had the infamous “pink underwear” factor.

Joel McHale, though he seriously butchered one of his opening gags (about Tavaré being the second-creepiest guy on LCS), was sharp as always– thanks, no doubt, to his writing team. (The contrast between his team and that of LCS’s writers was sharp when McHale threw it back to Bellamy and Cotton– it was like letting the air out of a giant comedy balloon.) McHale should have been hosting– the show would have benefited from a bit of snark. The only bright spots in the entire 90 minutes were, in order: McHale, Triumph (savaging the comics to their faces!) and Jon Reep, who demonstrated that he’s been working like a dog for the past 10-1/2 months.

But getting back to McHale’s Standup Soup presentation– he quite vividly demonstrated the show’s inexplicable lack of a sense of humor. And when he showed the montage of Shlesinger clad variously in her underwear and a bikini, he threw another shovel of dirt on the show’s credibility.

Indeed, after seeing that montage, Shlesinger herself should be embarassed. Regardless of whether or not she won, she will, for the foreseeable future, mount the stage with the knowledge that a significant number of her votes were motivated not by a genuine fondness for her humor but by a momentary and primal lust for her body parts.

You do what you gotta to win. But, for those folks who are prone to extrapolate and try to determine the larger socio-cultural implications of Shlesinger’s victory (Bellamy himself was quick to bellow about her being the show’s first female winner), it’s a sorry moment.

Sure, she showed a certain minimal level of “toughness” in fending off the challenges (if you want to call it that), but we will always wonder (as will the general public) what the outcome would have been had she not colluded with the show’s producers to engineer the cheesecake clips in the house segment of the show.

It was obvious, from the very beginning, that this show was “cast” to appeal to a very narrow (read: young) demographic. But, judging from the anemic numbers the show garnered, it didn’t work. Or, it worked, but too well– it may have gotten the youths, but it got few others.

On Saturday, May 31, we posted the following about an interview that LCS exec producer David Friedman did with RealityTVWorld.com’s Christopher Rocchio:

Were Friedman’s words twisted by Rocchio, or do we have genuine controversy going on here:

Friedman said the talent on the show this year shouldn’t disappoint and hinted that the sixth season might produce Last Comic Standing’s first-ever female winner.

“I think this year we did see a lot of strong women,” he said. “I mean, we really did and I think that’s a great sign for everyone in the comedy business because it has been a difficult sort of thing for women to break through. But I think this year we have a great talent pool.”

We don’t see anything in Friedman’s quote to indicate that this season might produce a female winner. And, since (so far as we know) there are only two females among the top twelve finalists, Friedman’s statement (and Rocchio’s conclusion) makes little sense.

Apparently, Rocchio saw it coming. We were skeptical.

We must admire Jon Lovitz for giving standup a try this late in his career. But that set clearly demonstrated just how far he has to go in becoming a comedian. And it was lengthy! Should not that time have been used to give a minute or two to the comedian who won “Last Comic Driving?” (Can it be called “product placement” when the perfomers actually perform inside the product?) Might they have thrown Whitney Cummings a bone and let her stretch her legs, get out of the cramped car and actually do a standup set standing up? Hell, they even let Theo Von and Josh Wolf do sets when LCS dallied with an interactive, online component a season or two ago.

Do we have to point out that both the Last Comic Standing and Last Comic Driving winners were… female?

And what the hell happened to the footage from the Secret Auditions?!? We knew they were keeping them a secret, but we didn’t think they would burn the tapes and disavow any knowledge of the entire venture! Those people who participated (The Male Half included) and those who were advanced to the larger auditions in other cities were screwed from the start. There probably was never any intention to use anything from the various auditions– and their faces never made it on but for a few fleeting glimpses here and there. A colossal waste of time for all involved. (And a colossal waste of money and good will for the show, since all involved were sworn to secrecy. So, not even the host clubs were able to make P.R. hay. Of course, the crowds who were present at the time got to see the TV star and got the tingle from participating in a network competition, but that’s not all that much bang for the buck when you crunch the numbers.

Perhaps it was our frame of mind in the early weeks of the show’s run. Perhaps it was the show itself, or a combination of all the factors, but we just aren’t that worked up about LCS and we aren’t too enthusiastic about this season’s impact– one way or the other– on live standup in the near term or the mid-term.