I have never cared for Bill Maher’s work.  His sardonic persona has carried him through Politically Incorrect and Real Time with Bill Maher, giving him some weight as a pundit.  Religulous (Super Channel: first airs July 10, 9:01 PM ET) should theoretically help me understand Maher’s humour better, since I like Larry Charles’ work on Seinfeld and Dilbert.

I hated Dilbert the comic strip at one time.  Charles and Scott Adams’ work on the cartoon version converted me.  In Dilbert‘s second season, Charles and Adams explored topics like faith vs. science and the existence of God, keeping the shows funny in the process.  It had the thematic focus Religulous doesn’t, as Religulous is too scattershot to be of any lasting impact.

I don’t think Religulous is a massive ego-stroke for Maher, as he can be insightful at times, but the film touches on one topic for a minute or two before jumping to the next.  Sometimes a segue between topics is provided, but not often.  The main problem with this approach is that one doesn’t get a real understanding of religion’s perceived faults.  Maher interviews someone, bounces an observation off the interviewee and moves on to his next one night stand.  All that’s missing is a rimshot.

Larry Charles, for his part, adds to Religulous‘ shallowness.  He leavens the interviews by adding relevant clips, pictures and/or captions to each one.  For instance, a mention of Mormon temple garments is backed by captions explaining what they protect against.  Since the joke is not yet subtle enough, Apollo Braun’s “Party in My Pants” plays in the background.  This is supposed to be funny, but I find Charles’ approach annoying.

Religulous suffers most from a cheap ending.  After ninety minutes of religion-mocking, Maher addresses the audience with “but seriously, folks…” for five minutes and change.  In this case he argues for “rational” people to take a stand against religion.  This isn’t a spoiler, since Maher established his position on religion earlier in the film.  In that case, why not make a point-by-point argument refuting the major world religions in an intelligent manner, rather than riffing off Borat?

Religulous doesn’t work, as Maher doesn’t approach religion differently from others in the comedy field.  George Carlin approaches the same central tenet as Religulous in one of his stand-up routines.  It’s funnier and more to-the-point.  Julia Sweeney, Doug Stanhope and Lewis Black have all mined religion’s humourous potential in a less smug way than Maher does in Religulous.

Hell, even Dilbert was better.  Dogbert is a magnificent bastard, after all.

In the end, Religulous amounts to nothing more than 101 minutes of Bill Maher spanning the globe in search of the Anti-Religious Equation.  I’d rather make up my own mind about religion than have someone else tell me how and what I should believe.

TVShowsonDVD.com receives news of the Road Hockey Rumble complete series box set.  This is old news by now, but at least TVShowsonDVD.com is talking about the series.  With trailer!

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6teen “Season 2, Volume 1″ out September 22, 2009.  True to form, the second season of 6teen will be split into volume sets like the first.  At least the volume set is marked properly this time.  “Special Yearbook Edition,” my ass.

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Friday the 13th: The Series‘ third and final season out September 22, 2009.  Ryan Dallion (John D. LeMay) leaves at the beginning of this season to make room for Johnny Ventura (Steve Monarque).

All three seasons of this series came out within a year.  That’s how you sell television on DVD, either that or the fanbase for Friday the 13th: The Series is voracious.  I can’t complain either way.

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Fear Itself‘s “first” season out September 15, 2009.  The show is listed here as it was filmed in and around Edmonton, Alberta.  IMDb gives Canada and USA as countries of origin, so there you go.

I quote “first” as NBC lost interest in the series after the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.  Fear Itself won’t be back.  Nice packaging for the Fear Itself set, but I hope that’s not mag wheels on a dump truck.(© Arn Anderson)

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Pre-order gubbins for Stargate Atlantis: The Complete Series.

Press release for Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods Final Cut.

In other news, MGM and Fox flog Stargate.  I know, how can you tell?

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Television Obscurities and TV Squad make reference to the Swiss Family Robinson complete series set.

It’s not a great week for TV-on-DVD in general when a Parker Lewis Can’t Lose set is the highlight.  To combat the dearth of true “cult” TV-on-DVD titles, here’s ten minutes of The Vacant Lot.  Happy Canada Day!