‘The Joel McHale Show With Joel McHale’ On Netflix: Can You Spell “The Soup” Without An E?

Chelsea Handler said she didn’t want to make any more jokes about the Kardashians, and when she left E! for Netflix to do so, so did too many of her fans. Bye, bye, Chelsea.

Joel McHale said E! wouldn’t let him make any more jokes about the Kardashians on The Soup, thus ruining the soup, so will The Joel McHale Show With Joel McHale on Netflix fill us up just as mm-mm good?

The first of 13 weekly episodes debuted on Sunday. The timing is as right as any for a topical talk-show, for as John Oliver has found over on HBO, Sunday’s satire can dominate the real-life and online watercooler chatter come Monday mornings. And McHale is nothing if not self-aware. His return to the airwaves opens with a clip of a dog jumping on a sleeping pig – cut to Kevin Hart poking a “sleeping” McHale on the audience chairs in studio.

“Joel, this is Netflix, OK? You can’t just take random naps while you’re doing the show. This isn’t like your last job,” Hart tells him. (We’re all supposed to forget The Great Indoors happened?)

After the sketch, we cut to McHale, back standing in front of his green screen. “Now, where was I? Oh, right. The Bachelor.”

For anyone who truly missed The Soup, it’s back and brasher than ever. Same production team, plus Paul Feig, who appears on camera briefly in the premiere but not does attempt an all-female reboot of The Soup, which would only make us miss Aisha Tyler again but more this time, with feeling.

The Joel McHale Show With Joel McHale brings new jokes about all the new and returning trash television, only now with uncensored profanities and no commercial interruptions. Week one includes not only gags about The Bachelor, but also Love & Hop: Miami, Love & Hip Hop: New York, Sister Wives, Pickler & Ben, Ultimate Beastmaster, WWE’s SmackDown Live, KTLA news, Today with Kathie Lee and Hoda, and married (with secrets).

And McHale addresses the $400 billion elephant in the room: Netflix.

A pre-taped segment offering a tour of the facilities certainly promotes plenty of the streaming giant’s other offerings, while also getting in a dig at Fuller House, a self-deprecating reunion of Community cast members, and Mike Colter’s Luke Cage, outside Netflix HQ in between opening jars for passersby, reacting to McHale’s new show: “It finally happened. They ran out of ideas.”

McHale’s updated version of soup also recognizes Netflix’s global reach: Here with looks at South Africa and South Korean soaps.

Eli Braden offers a catchy, tongue-in-cheek meta song over the closing credits, recognizing that most of you, unlike me, will never hear it. You should hear it, though. It really is catchy and fun!

So is McHale. This is a role that suits him. For better or worse. Til TV’s death do we part.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch The Joel McHale Show With Joel McHale on Netflix