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.
I noticed this time you seemed to feel more comfortable in your environment. I’m looking forward to see you progress with this.
The Knockbusters—must to find not-Batman! And Wilhelms make everything better!
Favorite line: Walk for your lives!
More Drunk NDT! (roared the mob of … one)
But, seriously, keep ’em coming! Well done!
Love the show. Not crazy about the game show segment but I really love it when you and Felicia Day get together so yes it worked. It was a bit hard to find Episode 2 because my DVR was filled with Episode 1 even though I have record set to first run only, Glad to hear its being addressed. Looking forward to next weeks episode.
I downloaded the SyFy app simply to watch the first episode, and it worked surprisingly well. Aside from the worse-than-Hulu commercials (I stopped in the middle of the episode after watching 3 lumps of commercials, and when I came back it remembered my spot – and made me watch ALL THE SAME COMMERCIALS over again in one long heap) the app worked fine. It’s a pain but worth it for 20 minutes of entertainment!
I thought your first episode was really good, and even though I haven’t heard of/don’t watch pretty much most of the shows you mentioned, the jokes were mostly broad enough to encompass more than just the watchers of the shows.
I look forward to episode 2!
Both shows made me chuckle, but this week’s was hilarious! I watched them both for the first time today and side by side it’s easy to tell you are much more comfortable in the second episode. Keep up the good work!
Really? Pretty much the first thing my husband said when Donnie shot the doctor was, “Uh-oh, he needs Harvey Keitel.” To which I nodded and laughed. Guess we’re in the Wil%. 😉
Wil, I knew you would settle in nicely. Episode 2 was so much better – the sound was good, you were more relaxed, the show flowed smoothly. Job well done, sir. This 58 year-old fan (i.e. old fart) is proud of you. Looking forward to the next show.
I’m so old school that I don’t actually have a DVR and have to rely on things like schedules and programming. So I watched both episodes when they first aired (West Coast) on Tuesday at 10:00
Tried watching the 1st ep on Syfy.com last week, but they’ve got that bogus thing about only letting you watch a show if you can prove you have cable. If I had cable, I wouldn’t need to watch it online…… So, there’s that. Bleh.
I actually managed and I’m all the way in Canada. Had one of those Firefox add-ons that hide where you’re from and I didn’t watch it until 3 days later. Unless you have a cable provider you can’t watch it until after the day it airs and the following 48 hours. So, more success than I had trying to watch the Kings/Blackhawks series but still irritating!
We enjoyed the show very much. You were much more comfortable looking.
It was really fun to watch, and it left me wondering there is tension between your consistent message that people should go make things even if they aren’t experts (paraphrasing) and then making fun of people who have done that. It was funny, but uncomfortable, and it left me with the lingering question of how those two things fit together for you. In would enjoy it if you showed really cool, funny stuff that you could laugh with more than at. But that’s just me.
The second episode was absolutely spot on from beginning to end. Many smiles, many chuckles and several truly LOL moments.
I laughed so hard over the batman-esque Knockbuster that I woke up my old deaf cat.
Well played, Mr Wheaton…well played.
I thought this week’s episode was much better in terms of energy, production, etc. I watched it live and then stuck around for the reair of episode 1, so I hope that helps. At the risk of sounding like a doofus, I really am so proud of you. It makes me exceedingly happy to see you on my TV every week. Great job, Wil!!
loved the show and will definitely be watching it every week. I’d say i laughed so hard at a particular segment but the whole show really came together. After all the building up to it, i’m happy for ya!
if i watch the show more than once on syfy,com, does that count for multiple ratings?
your audience must have been too young or too lame, because i too thought of pulp fiction when donnie did The Thing on orphan black! you were not the only one, wil!
Wil, you are so adorable. Luvs 🙂
I had such high hopes for your show. Unfortunantly I found out too late that it is not something I can share with my girls (10 and 8). Too bad. Looked like it had such promise.
If you have access, there is nothing stopping you from watching it after you put them to sleep.
What is the likelihood of getting Netflix to pick up TWWP? SyFy is still only showing me the first episode on their website, and I don’t have cable or Hulu.
I also enjoyed the second episode more than the first, I thought you seemed much more into this episode. The Knockbusters segment was hilarious. Keep on doing your thing and it will all work out fine!
Wil, as a long time fan, I’ve got to say that you made me realize something
As much as I’ve loved Tosh.0, there was just something I missed. Whereas tosh is this cynical douche, you show a lot of enthusiasm and make me enjoy the show more
Hannibal is the best show on network TV and its not really even close.
2nd episode still “locked” behind “cable login” on syfy.com. 🙁 Hope that expires, after maybe 48 hours like others have said?
Great episode overall, though it started pretty slow for me. I wasn’t sure it was going to be that funny, but it picked up quickly and it seemed you saved all the good stuff for the second half.
I think this week’s episode of your show had too much similar material to last week’s episode. You should move on from Game of Thrones and Malkovich or at least reduce their screen time a lot. Plus there was a lot of gore in the first segment, not what I was expecting. One last comment, at the end you say “Play more games” but you don’t talk about games in your show at all! Bring in some video games or tabletop talk.
I made a Wolf joke about Orphan Black at work the next day, and the co-worker I told it to got it. I say go for the Wil% Joke next time!
Oooh, I can tell you’re having some fun.
Go with it…. it’s really a good look for you.
#2 was smoother. Give you another couple episodes and you will be selling used cars in no time. 😀
I’ve been trying to watch on Hulu, but it’s still not available to cordcutters. I have no idea what the people in charge think they’re doing, but at best it’s tone-deaf and at worst it’s setting you up to fail. I’m sorry, man. Please let us know if there are other ways to watch and be counted since Hulu and Syfy aren’t available.
The Wilhelm scream did not go unnoticed, my son caught it immediately (and thus gained a point, we have an ongoing competition to see who can catch it first in whatever show we’re watching).
So…. Hulu Plus is really Hulu Minus?
There’s a game show segment idea: The Wil-helm Scream. Contestants see a clip with three people, and guess who exits accompanied by our favorite sound effect. Fun for the whole family!