Why? With Hannibal Buress is less a title of a new programme on Comedy Central and more of a challenge for critics, writers and befuddled audience members to make really easy jokes. “Why is this man wearing a wig on 8 July?” “Why am I watching this show?” “Why did someone even put this on the air?”  After watching the premiere of Comedy Central’s newest gem on 8 July (since it was taped the day before it aired, the network didn’t make review copies available to critics), all of these are valid questions. The show defies easy explanation because it doesn’t fit into any preconceived format. That could be a plus if it was breaking barriers and defying genre, but instead it is just a confused mishmash that has no inherent sense of purpose, confusing both to watch and to understand.  Basically, the show consists of Buress – who audiences might know from comedy clubs or his supporting role in Comedy Central’s truly brilliant Broad City – giving a standup set with some prerecorded video sections thrown in and a few random production gags to give it a grander sense of scale. Something like Inside Amy Schumer, which is coming off a bravura third season, manages to contain sketches, standup routines, man-on-the-street interviews and sit-down chat sessions all in 22 minutes, but it gives them a theme to make everything cohere. Why?, on the other hand, throws everything against the wall and then shrugs and laughs nervously when nothing sticks.  Related: Hannibal Buress: 'I don’t think I could ever be high on television'  After a rather inspired opening salvo where Conan O’Brien’s audience tells him he shouldn’t guest-star on Buress’s premiere, the comedian launches into some jokes about Caitlyn Jenner, Donald Trump, Greece and other au courant topics. I was waiting for him dig into these subjects more deeply, almost like comedy journalism, but Buress just glides over them superficially. It’s like the introduction to a Seinfeld episode, intent on the observation and the question without following through for more substance.  Next comes the funniest bit of the whole show, where he finds out the person trolling him on Twitter is really Amy Schumer, who’s there to plug her movie Trainwreck (17 July, everyone!). This succeeds mostly because Buress plays the straight man and lets Schumer do her own thing, but it does address the issue of comedians’ jealous competitiveness.  Buress’s energy is an odd fit for this format-free show. He has sort of a laid-back, hangdog attitude, which is a refreshing difference from the usually frenetic pose of most comedians – when he’s on stage. On TV his style it comes across as plodding, as if he’s not sufficiently motivated to get on to the next segment.  The show does contain some of Buress’s typically sharp insights into race, culture and modern politics, especially in his prerecorded sections about how he tried to tell police that he doesn’t answer questions, a strategy that works shockingly well for a white man but ends up getting Buress bombed by a drone. But in this contextual vacuum they end up ringing hollow.  In an excellent article in the New York Times Magazine about the development process at Comedy Central, it’s noted that the channel finds talent it wants to work with and then finds the best project for that talent, no matter what it might be. Buress has one of those deals. His show was initially called Unemployable and was supposed to be about him trying out various real-life jobs, like goat farming. The show wasn’t quite working, but execs at the network really liked one section where he wondered why farmers have to get up so damn early, and that was the genesis of Why?  “The idea now is that I’ll tackle different subjects with monologues, man-on-the-street interviews, sketches,” Buress said. “So I can do some of the field stuff we were going to do on Unemployable, but we’re not constricted – we have more flexibility.”  Little of that intention was on display in this first episode. There were glimmers in the monologues and the sketches, but they needed to focus on a broad, univerally interesting topic and less on the current events flavour that is done so much better on The Daily Show, or Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.  At the outset of Why? Buress says, “I like the name of the show because it lets me ask questions about anything.” That is exactly the problem. Thanks to his ability to question anything, he hasn’t been able to home in on anything. Buress is one of the freshest and most subversive voices in comedy today and is definitely deserving of his own show. This does not seem to be that show and, unless it can come up with some answers to its own central question soon, probably not one worth watching.
Buress is a talented comedian with sharp insights into culture and politics, but was badly served by a show that couldn’t work out what its purpose was