Review: 'A New Year With Kat & Tyrus'

Most of us have been in a work situation where we were forced to be at a meeting or an event that we really did not want to attend. There's the awkward forced banter, the uncomfortable fake smiles and the overwhelming feeling that something has gone terribly wrong with your life.

If you wanted to see that emotional pain played out in a one-hour New Year's Eve special, then may I recommend the horrifyingly uncomfortable Fox News Channel special A New Year With Kat & Tyrus. They're filling in for Greg Guttfeld while he is taking some time off and if nothing else, the duo managed to show just how difficult it is to hit even Guttfeld's half-ass level of entertainment.

The panel guests were a collection of C-level conservative media hacks and people slowly coming to the realization while on camera that this is the type of event in which you'll be happy that no one will remember it the next day.

Kennedy (yes, that Kennedy) was slinging drinks in a outfit that made her look a bit like Carrot Top's Grandmother. And the panel included Michele Tafoya (who has a podcast), Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt and comedian Jeff Dye. 

Kat & Tyrus counted down their "favorite" stories of the year and there are two things to know about the segment. Not only are neither one of them capable of reading a teleprompter without looking as if the teleprompter is written in a language they can't quite comprehend, they're forced to read "punchlines" which aside from not being funny, were written to be "funny" when they're read, not spoken. It's an astoundingly tone deaf segment and I suppose if nothing else it does illustrate that most conservative humor is 90 percent trolling and 10 percent punchline.

The conversation then moved to the panelist's take on the stories and aside from the lack of insight or humor, there were awkward pauses in the banter to large you could have driven a 16-wheeler through them. Then it's time for each panelist to talk about their favorite news stories of the year and what a surprise, all three panelists chose a moment that highlighted Donald Trump. It was a bit like overhearing a group of open-mike comics discussing why the comedy club owner is a such a great guy.

Next up, Kat asked each panelist a multiple choice question and I know I've mentioned this before, but what sort of humorless intern wrote this material? Here's one example of the multiple choice questions:

"In March, FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to how many years in prison over a cryptocurrency scam?

A) 20
B) 25
C) 15
D) Set free, because his haircut was punishment enough"

I....never mind.

And then, oh good, there is a pre-recorded bit in which they sent Kat out to "banter" with people on the streets of New York. If you consider walking up to a stranger and asking them if they plan to start smoking in 2025 as banter and not borderline harassment. It's just painful to watch and each interaction is even more uncomfortable than the previous one. By the end of the segment, I am convinced that if you walked up to Kat and said "hello," she'd need a cue card and some rehearsal time to respond with "Hello, how are you?"

Comedian Jeff Dye then got up to do some jokes in front of the studio audience of seniors who were on set and most of the performance centered around his experience at the Apple store and how weird it was that the person helping him had a green mohawk and a neck tattoo. Aside from the fact that it wasn't especially funny, it was an odd riff coming from someone who isn't sixty. If Henny Youngman were alive, this is the routine I would expect him to be doing. And he would be getting laughs, because it would come off as authentic to him. Rather than Dye's approach, which was to deliver a bunch of hackneyed anti-woke observations as if that was enough to be funny and entertaining.

"I've met thirty trans people in my life, half of them were working at that Apple store."

Have I mentioned that conservative humor isn't all that funny?

I wasn't sure what to expect when I tuned into A New Year With Kat & Tyrus, but I can tell you I wasn't prepared to spend an hour watching a public access show filled with people who apparently were only there to cash a check. Thankfully I have a life away from television. Because if the highlight of my New Year's Eve had been watching this show, I would seriously be thinking about making some changes. 

Holy crap, did this suck.