Jewdar knew it was was going to be awful, but we had no clue just how awful. The Marriage Ref, NBC’s new Jerry Seinfeld produced show that replaced the Jay Leno primetime fiasco, is the kind of disaster that used to lead Jewish communities to declare a day of fasting. There’s not much we wish to say about it (as soon as this blog post is done, we’re going to take a shower and try and scrub away the memory of it), except that, like some horrible Chimera from a Greek myth, it incorporates the worst aspects of both scripted and reality TV. Like the latter, it involves boring scenarios with boring people engaging in a reality that seems strangely unreal. Like the former, it involves crappy and completely predictable one-liners followed by one of the most annoying laugh tracks we’ve heard in years, most of which consisted largely of the celebrity guests simply making obvious statements in a loud, agitated way. (As in "Jerry, you really owe your Hollywood friends big time for appearing in this crap fest!!!!!!" Wacka-wacka, cue laugh track)

Who would have thought that a show whose credits included Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Ricky Gervais and Madonna would suck so much? Maybe a fast isn’t such a bad idea after all. Or at the very least, could we get Paul Lynde’s ghost for a guest spot?

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