After a lifetime of watching myself on TV and movies, I’ve developed the ability to disconnect myself from the person I’m looking at on the screen. It hasn’t been easy, and I know that I’m more critical of myself than anyone else in the world, but it’s ended up being a particularly useful skill so I can grow as an actor, and be objectively critical of my work.
When I watched The Wil Wheaton Project Episode 2: Electric Boogaloo last night, I objectively liked what I saw. I thought my energy was right where I wanted it to be all along, I thought the editing made the entire show feel less frenetic, and I thought the dumb little asides I improvised when we taped the show mostly worked. I could tell that I wasn’t afraid to have fun, to take my time, to let the audience come to me, and to trust the material we had worked out. In short, I think it worked. I don’t know what the ratings are (but I do know that, once DVR numbers were counted for our first episode, we improved dramatically over our premiere last week. I also know that each repeat had more viewers than the last, and we had the fastest and most significant audience growth in the history of unscripted programming on the network. That’s pretty awesome.)
I haven’t seen any reviews, but going by my admittedly skewed Twitter sampling, the audience feels the same way that I did, and that’s reassuring because it tells me that my instincts were right.
A few notes on this particular episode:
- I thought it would be funny to try the funky 70s porn music under Oberyn Martell dancing around The Mountain, but the thing we went with was much funnier to all of us.
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As a fan of Orphan Black, I had a joke about it not being a good week for characters I like keeping their heads intact, with a tag about Donnie having to call the Wolf. One other person in the room got that joke, and we decided that it was a “Wil% joke”, which is a play on the “5% joke”, meaning that only 5% of the audience gets it.
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John Malkovich is the gift that keeps on giving.
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Hannibal is so fucking weird, I just don’t even know what to say about it anymore.
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Penny Dreadful is getting so good, it’s going to be hard to keep finding ways to do jokes for it.
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I was concerned that our dumb game show with Felicia Day may not work, but I think I was wrong. The writers did a great job picking clips, and the editors did a great job putting that whole thing together. The Wilhelm Scream was my idea.
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I loved the Knockbusters idea from the moment it was pitched, and the hardest part of it for us was figuring out which joke we were going to do for each clip. That Empire of the Apes thing was so outrageously bad, and the … acting? … in the not-Batman thing was so painful, we had to work really hard to find a joke that wasn’t just mean. At one point, we considered a commentary on everything that was ridiculous in it, and it just got so long, we pulled out that one thing about the scope.
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In general, I was very happy with the pace and the energy. I expect that we’ll improve in some way from week to week as we get more comfortable and settle into the right rhythm for what we’re doing.
Like last week, I’ll be sharing some clips from the show. We’re starting with this silly thing, from our newest sponsor:
We are aware that DVRs think every episode is a new episode. We’ve informed the network, and I hope that they’ll fix that problem as soon as possible. I know the show is on Hulu, but not Hulu Plus. That’s out of my hands, and I hate it. The best I think you can do is email Syfy and Hulu so they know that you want it on Plus. I know that a lot of you want to see it on iTunes or Amazon VOD, and I have no idea how that licensing works, or if the people who make those decisions will put it there.
What I do know is that the thing that helps us the most, the thing that makes it most likely that we’ll get picked up after 12, is to watch it on cable when it airs. I know that a huge part of the audience doesn’t watch TV that way, but until networks and advertisers stop thinking that’s the way that matters the most, it’s what we have.
But, as I’ve said before, the most important thing to me is that you watch and enjoy the show, so … there.
Can this be watched in the UK anywhere?
Go get Hola unblocker (hola.org) for Firefox or Chrome, then go to the SyFy page and tell hols to present you as being in the US. Then search for and enjoy Episode One. 🙂
Unfortunately, no. If you have a VPN that can make a computer think you’re in the US, you can see it that way. I hate that it’s restricted to USA, and hope that if we get picked up, we’ll also be picked up for SyfyUK and Space in Canada.
Thanks, Wil. I’ll look into the VPN. Hopefully the show will make it to the UK eventually.
PeteUplink – i use ProxMate to view it on the Syfy site up here in Canada.
Amazon cloud. You can get an instance for free.
Thanks, everyone. I’ll check them out.
I’d love it to be picked up by Space; I was surprised when it wasn’t a simulcast.
The energy was much improved, you didn’t look like you were trying so hard. Keep up the good work!
This. It seemed much more natural and improved it a lot. I laughed out loud at more clips the first week (The Cosmos stuff was just brilliant), but really felt this one came off feeling polished. I have been telling everyone I can to watch it. (Also my DVR this week was able to figure out that the first airing was the only “new” one, though it still has the episode count at 6)
Well I watched it as it aired on my ol tv, so I hope I got counted. The show was great. My favorite part is always when you crack yourself up in a genuine way.
I love this show Wil! It is the perfect pairing with Heroes of Cosplay. Your aside jokes worked, the game show was hysterical, <3 Felicia she's the best. I am so excited to see what the Wil Wheaton Project becomes as you get more experience with it, and the writers with you. I've been a fan for years, and it's so great seeing you go from other people's words, to your own vision. Congratulations on this and the incredible whirlwind that TableTop has become. You reigniting my love of board games is something i can never thank you enough for.
Playing more games!!!
I hope watching it when it was rebroadcast two hours later helps. I really wanted to be home in time to watch it live but my stupid car battery died.
So excited to hear you on the morning radio show I listen to at work this morning! Dave and Chuck the Freak in Detroit! Your interview spawned a 30 minute conversation with callers about their undercover nerd interests.
I loved the game show with Felicia it has been my favorite thing of all,however that might be due to the fact that Mega Python vs Gatoroid is the second most amazing move ever (the first would be Python)
As of this moment, only Episode 1 is available to us “Terrestrial TV” folks. Episode 2 is not on Hulu (or Hulu+) and on the Syfy network they have it locked behind a “list your provider” wall. Will that change to become more widely available later in the week or will I be stuck watching in a way that doesn’t provide direct “feedback” to you? Not trying to be a pain about it, I just want to watch it in a manner that provides some amount of benefit/credit to you…
What Gene said. You looked much more relaxed and comfortable, your timing was great, the Knockbusters was HILARIOUS, and if you can work a Wilhelm Scream into every future episode, I will be stupidly happy. And if you can work a John Malkovich joke into every episode…I won’t be at all surprised.
“But, as I’ve said before, the most important thing to me is that you watch and enjoy the show, so … there.”
I think so long as You enjoy making it, your enthusiasm will shine through making it enjoyable to all of us.
Overall a good show.
Speaking of DVR issues, is there a way SyFy could actually update the listing to be 31 minutes or whatever it needs to be? As it is, the last few seconds of the episode are cutoff (at least on Tivo).
I just edited my timer for this to add 3 more minutes to the end. Been a while since I owned a TiVo, but I am pretty sure that you can do it for this as well.
Yes, normally not an issue, but we don’t have it on season pass because of the other DVR issue Wil mentioned. And honestly just forgot to extend when setting up this week. Fortunately easy enough to grab another run of it, but annoying to be like “aaaaaaah, what’s the punch line???” 🙂
I had to set my TIVO to record an extra min. (it is a feature is you use season pass) and that seemed to work
My wife and I both enjoyed the episode. I hear vicious rumors that you are standing in front of a green screen. In a future episode, I think you should dispel these rumors and show that you are standing in front of a real background, but that you are wearing a green bodysuit and your jacket and tie are CGI.
I agree that the first episode was a little amped up but that is natural for a premier particular one with so much unscripted on camera work. I think you are settling in nicely and the format really does seem to suit you. Ep2 was way more relaxed and is starting to show that this is a good format and you’ll be a great host. Looking forward to more. PS I’m a television director and I’m rooting for you.
I’ll try to make sure to watch as it airs next week. I forget how alien that has become till I try to go out of my way to do it.
Enjoying the show.
Totally agree that this week’s energy was spot on and I admit that John Malkovich is my favorite bit.
On a side note, in the Pfoinkle household, we refer to the “Christian Bale batman voice” as the “Call me snake” voice. It’s not as pronounced, but historically, we believe it’s the origin husky voice. 😉
My husband is not a TV watcher generally but likes to be near me and ends up watching. He actually put his book down and LOL’d at several sketches last night! We also DVR’d for the 21 year old so he and his compadres can watch later. Loving the show… can’t wait for next week!
Aww I wish I had cable so I could watch it when it airs. I want your show to do fantastically! I hope it does!! Will look for it on Hulu so I can check it out!!
My DVR’s hard drive crashed. When? Well, last Tuesday, of course. All caught up on the show now and will do my best to watch live from now on.
The second episode seemed less stiff so it looks as if you’re settling in. The audience didn’t sound as canned as in the first episode and the C. Bale gag was hilarious.
Keep up the great work and thanks for keeping us occupied until more TableTop is available.
I just got around to watching the premier a couple of nights ago (on the website, because I’m one of those ratings-skewing cord cutters), and I wanted to let you know I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time. I’m looking forward to watching last night’s episode.
I dvr the original showing and watch it within a day, does that get counted? Love the show and want my vote to keep it going counted!
References I found said it counts in the first 3 days.
The show is better than most, and I loved it because it was YOU. But that first episode was all over the place, and was far too… obvious. The second started doing what the show NEEDS to do in the long run: be critical of the silly things that come along in nerd culture, expose nerds to things they may miss out on, etc. Really, after the superficial opening show… the second show was awesome and unexpected.
As a former math major, I can say that if we extrapolate on the level of improvement, next week is going to be mind-blowing. I have EVERY confidence that the show will only grow in awesomeness. I will continue to watch every week regardless, because your energy and enthusiasm is infectious… and I’m all about getting infected. Um.. I mean…
I just went to SyFy and tried to watch it – and they seem to be allergic to streaming through their site. Every time I clicked on “Watch Full Episodes” or clicked on the new episode directly, the whole page freezes up.
Oh, nevermind – I just realized that (at 1:00pm here) they still don’t have last night’s full episode available on their site.
When I went there the episode was there, but behind one of those “Choose your provider to continue” walls that shows up when you click it. You might have had that popup blocked or something, which is why it appeared like it was hanging. Just a guess…
That makes sense – I have 2 different pop-up blockers active in Firefox.
The first episode was good, the second episode was great. The Felicia Day game show was amazing; it almost felt like audience participation because I was guessing along with you guys. Also, I love, love, LOVED the knockbuster clips. I’ve always been a ‘fan’ of bad movies (and by that I mean turning them into some sort of drinking game).
I’m grateful that my boyfriend has cable, so I can go to his house and watch it on-air every week. I stay up late particularly for your show, because I really want there to be more than 12. Thanks for making me laugh!
How do the Hulu/FXweb counts get added? Are they in the dvr counts? #IWannaBeCounted
10pm on Saturday night is a great slot for me to watch it live. Especially since I’ll have already made an effort to watch SHIELD that night (when it comes back on).
I thought the Gallagher clip was really funny. The comment about his act seemed mean and unnecessary. But then a few years ago I kind of decided that I wasn’t going to make fun of Gallagher or Carrot Top again. Their acts aren’t my thing, but they do them sincerely and passionately and a lot of people like them. I don’t want to be that geek who puts down other geeks.
But that was the only thing in last night’s show that I thought was mean. There is a fine line between kidding about something that you really like and humiliating something because you don’t. You are mostly doing a good job of the former.
Also, lean towards not worrying about what jokes the audience will get. Have faith that the right people will get the joke. But do that in moderation. That will help keep you from underestimating the audience. Having a few really smart, esoteric jokes will also build a core loyalty among the few that do get it. People like to be part of the in-crowd.
The guest spots are working well.
I think this show will be at its best when the audience feels like they are joking around with their pal Wil Wheaton about their shared favorite shows. This week felt closer to that than last week.
Loved your energy this episode. I want the show to feel like I’m sitting in a room with you and we’re riffing back and forth about stupid stuff. This week was very much like that.
Thank you for the Wilhelm – ever since Middleman my 13-year-old son has decided it is his sacred quest to find it wherever he can. Turned to me in the middle of the show last night and we simoed “Wilhelm” at each other…;)
We don’t actually subscribe to cable, or satellite. The very small amount of TV we watch is through Hulu+ or online. I doubt the networks count those views at all, but looking forward to when this episode hits Syfy online.
As someone who knows how to watch US-locked shows, yet lives in the UK, I was very annoyed at the Orphan Black spoiler. We don’t get to see it until tonight 🙁 (Yes, I suppose I could have arranged to watch that early too, but as it’s being shown here I’d rather show them the support they need & can register.)
Any chance you could show a leeeeelte less gore?
I’d be inclined to cut out a bit of the gore as well. The show is totally something my husband would love and when I was watching the first episode and it came to the Walking Dead clip (which was hilarious) I knew my husband would be really skeeved out by that. I’m sure most people don’t mind but I also don’t think people would miss them if they were a little less graphic.
I just got cable yesterday and watched episode one twice and episode two once, set it to record everything, and will watch live tonight. That show is awesome. I didn’t know what to expect, but your utter glee and love of sci-fi in all its goofy glory made me really happy. More, more!
Your show is hilarious but alot of the humor is over my head but I am ok with that! I am really happy to see you back on TV and having fun 🙂
Setting my TiVo to do a weekly manual recording at that time rather than a season pass worked. Your isn’t the only show I’ve had to do that with – stuff like The Rachel Maddow Show is also tagged as new for each rebroadcast (or at least it was for years – maybe they finally fixed that?). Anyway, great stuff! Haven’t watched last night’s ep since I have a running commitment Tuesday nights, hopefully I will tonight.
If only Penny Dreadful would find a story. The only sex thing they haven’t done is bestiality and I am sure that is coming soon.
After 4 episodes of endless wandering and hints of some form of story and being back filled wtih sex and violence to fill the lack of story get’s old after a while.
I was excited about this show and it’s actors but the story is weak and slow.
My critique would be that so far the show has pretty much been “Nerd Soup”. Not that that’s inherently bad, it’s just that the show needs to find its own voice if its going to get past episode 12.
Hey there, sir. Loving the show and agree that this second episode felt much more natural and comfortable for you.
In regards to your comments regarding the NOT Batman movie and trying to not go mean with the jokes, I think that’s a good decision. Keeping the tone positive even when you’re goofing on things is much truer to the spirit of geekdom, to me.
On another note, I’ve noticed that when the bottom 3rd adds pop up for the show, you’re dressed more casually then on the show itself. What’s the rationale behind this decision? Thanks for your time and the great show.
Ugh. That’s promos at the network using an old bit of graphic that was done long before the show was locked down. I’ve asked them to change it, but we’re probably stuck with it for at least the first 12.
That’s funny…my DVR hasn’t recorded anything but the first showing. Must not be a Comcast thing…
My husband and I laughed our asses off. We’ve got it set up to be recorded, but we make sure we’re watching as it airs. We don’t do that with many shows out there, which means we genuinely enjoy it. I think it is getting better. You seemed more settled and you didn’t look like you were going to jump out of your skin. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up.
I and my 2 teens(girl 17, boy 15) loved this weeks episode. I certainly seemed to flow better as i suspected it would. Keep up the good work and always make the show you want to make. You are the nerd, they are just businessmen. Until next time…. Play more games, write more posts, send more tweets, wear more horse mask, and eat more burritos!
Argh, I am so torn. As I am in the UK, it looks like you may possibly spoil three of my favourite (sorry, favorite) shows but then you have Felicia Day on and what sounds like a great Game of Thrones sketch. I may have to watch with my fingers in my ears singing ‘La La La’ at crucial points.
Love the show Wil, and until your for sure picked up I will keep watching you live and not on my DVR!
It was definitely a lot smoother than last week. Last week’s seemed a bit too forced, I think. This week, your rhythm was better. Still undecided if I’ll keep watching (especially since I’m in Canada and have to take “extra measures” to be able to watch it), but I haven’t been driven away yet. Keep it up, sir! (and play more games!)
Wil, I am sad to say that I live in the UK, and while I was able to watch the first episode (with a little work), I can’t get to see this one. I’ve tried as hard as I’m willing to (and boy do SyFy make it hard), and now I’m giving up. Keep on keeping on. \o/
Is there a way to leave positive feedback or a “like” that the network will count? I don’t have a television service provider but loved the first episode.
Really like the show. I think it will only get better as time goes on. Any chance the goons at SyFy would bump you up to an hour? I can tell you have so much more stuff you’d like to cover, but 30 minutes minus commercials just isn’t enough time.
I’m curious about how the way the viewers are counted specifically those who watch it live on cable vs online. Is it still the case that only people with Nielson boxes get counted in the shows rating? If so, would it be better if those of us who don’t have those boxes watch it online on Hulu so we can still be counted? I don’t have one of those boxes and I just want to make sure that my viewership is counted because I want to see the show stick around for a long time.
I tried to do some research on this, and only came up with a 2012 article that said Nielson ratings were primary, with DVR being added in for the next 3 days – but the Nielson overnights are what matter. The article said set-top boxes (cable boxes) were starting to be used for local ratings, so it’s possible those are being used more broadly now?
Moar Hannibal: https://twitter.com/ZooHannibal
Loved the first one and I can’t wait to watch the second on demand when I get home tonight. Sadly my cable box is not hooked up and I can only watch cable on demand through my xbox otherwise id love to help boost your live ratings. Keep up the amazing work and don’t forget about Table Top in your new increased fame 🙂
Also, I appreciate whatever was done to make the audience sound less like a laugh track. Though “laughtrack done by one lady who is very easily amused” was… technically… an improvement.
“I noticed my phone didn’t ring” -scripted or adlib?
If the show keeps improving as it has between only the first two episodes, you have a winner on your hands. I think I had one LOL moment and a couple of giggles last week but this week had more LOLs. The commercials were my favourites, the Hannibal one was just perfect. As a photographer I’m a huge fan of Hannibal’s visuals. I think they are the most stunningly shot ones since Carnivale (remember that?).
To put you at ease, I absolutely loved How Will They Bite It? That could be a great party game.
Keep up the good work!