5/10
Cross not losing his edge; it's just rusty now
16 August 2016
This is an odd thing to see. I don't mean Netflix producing a special for David Cross, but more so him doing stand-up. It seemed like his glory days were behind him and this sort of proves it. His topical comments on politics take longer to make people laugh compared to his last three comedy specials. You could tell the audience respected him as a comedy giant but the content was just underwhelming. His energy level is really low and keeping the audience engaged for an hour is just stretching jokes out. Honestly, I did enjoy watching it; but when I went to go listen back to his previous work, I was reminded on how skillful his edgy comedy was.

The tempo in his previous shows was at a steady rate. This time it doesn't live up to his career. There is always typically a time where an artist is at their peak. And it seems this is the point where he's climbing down. He's gotten quite rusty this time around. The only moment I actually laughed hysterically was one joke at the end. And what Cross does best is get people to laugh with his tone, cadence, mannerisms, and hyperbolic the minimalist bait and switch jokes. But you can't ride on that with just sub-par material. I liked some of the content, but at some point it was like he was riding a wave for too long without changing course appropriately. Usually David Cross' bits are very quick and the longer ones are multi-faceted or connect to another point to move the entire show along. The theme is extremely muddled and sloppy when compared to his previous work.

If you like David Cross but if you never seen/heard his stand-up before--I'd recommend that much more.
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