Season 7, Episode 4 has aired. (And it was two hours long. With, sadly, no re-run of last Monday’s episode. Bummer. Oh, sure– all the others in the first three episodes get their appearances re-run, but not us!)

Two hours of the semifinals, taped in April, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, CA. Of course, we didn’t see one minute of it because they didn’t let anyone involved with the second night of semifinals observe the first night of semifinals. Something about an unfair advantage. We’re unclear on the explanation, “in the interest of fairness,” we were not allowed to peek when the other contestants had their big night.

Anyway, we were seeing it for the first time tonight and comparing it to what we had heard while in Glendale. And, of course, we knew who advanced to the finals. And The Male Half participated in the second night and The Female Half sat in the VIP section. So we knew what to expect, aesthetically. But it was still fascinating to watch.

We feel really bad for comedian Joe List and the comedy musical team Stuckey & Murray. They both got red envelopes, got to perform in Glendale, but were “disappeared” entirely from the episode! (Well, not entirely– you can see them all in the front row of the shot at the end when all the contestants are gathered center stage, some on risers. But they skillfully edited here, zoomed in there, cropped over here and– voila!– Stuckey & Murray and David Cope, gone! (Editors note: An earlier edition of this post mis-identified Joe List as David Cope.)

Just how do we pronounce Mike DeStefano’s last name? The Male Half attended school with a family of DeStefanos. They were Dee.STEF.uh.noe, not Dee.stef.FON.noe… But Craig Robinson used both!

Once again, they let Andy Kindler profess to be all verklempt when it comes to contemplating the homeless (…I sometimes cry for the homeless.”) and just how distasteful he finds jokes about the homeless and the heartless cretins who tell such jokes. He did this while critiquing the performance of Amanda Melson.

This would not be so uncomfortable were it not for the fact that Kindler totally misunderstood Melson’s joke that made a point about the homeless. He said that Melson’s joke made a turn toward “slamming the homeless” when it did nothing of the kind. It made a good, comic point about the ridiculousness of a clothing drive that proscribes the donation of “dated blue jeans.” The butt of the joke is anyone who might imagine that the homeless are that choosy when it comes to accepting free clothes. (Should we even have to explain how ridiculous this is? When was the last time you were confronted by someone who took offense to some of your subject matter and then proceeded to demonstrate quite clearly that they didn’t actually get the joke?! You wouldn’t be very favorably inclined to explain the bit… and you would call that person a “crank.”)

Why were the comics who qualified for the semis in Glendale not told that there would be someone among the judges who had a peculiar desire to use the broadcast for a personal mission– which might be ridding the world, not of homelessness, but at least ridding the world of jokes about them– so, in the interest of fairness (sound familiar?), we’ll tell you right now, this person is not going to like any jokes about homelessness, regardless of how well-built and nuanced and funny they might be.

Such a short warning, back in NYC on March 22 or back further when the LA auditions were held, would have spared at least Amanda Melson from being made to look insensitive.

A lot of comics told insensitive jokes before Melson performed. Nearly all of the jokes were well-crafted and delivered to great effect. Yet not one of the comics delivering them was singled out as being insensitive. It wasn’t hinted that any of those comics might be callous or unfeeling when it came to those less fortunate. In fact, much was made of the fact that a good number of them had the artisitic fortitude to write and perform material that was unconventional, gutsy, edgy, etc. (And, let’s face it, insensitive.)

It’s puzzling that, among the pedophile jokes and the accidental amputation stories and the child abuse gags (all of which were howlingly funny, to us), the only joke that was slammed, at length and in some depth (at least for a fast-paced show such as LCS), was a joke that had made a pretty good point about misguided but well-meaning people and their clumsy attempts to ameliorate the effects of homelessness.

Did they really have to show it?