The death of Joan Rivers left the irreverent “Fashion Police” without its most outrageous voice.
Through a series of backstage power plays, Rivers’ daughter, Melissa, took over as host of the show (the much funnier Kathy Griffin was also a contender at one point).
The show debuted Monday night with a nearly hourlong dissection of Sunday night’s VMAs, which by 8 p.m. were already old news in the world of social media and coverage in the old media.
As such, the show needed a strong host to really make the red carpet shots of Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and Taylor Swift seem worth looking at again, and Rivers doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. There, I’ve said it. She is not funny.
In a particularly lame opening, she knelt on the floor of the set, pretending to be doing some “house cleaning,” and turned to the camera and said, “It’s been a crazy year. I’m still cleaning up some messes.”
Well, she can now continue by cleaning up her own show.
No one really expects a collection of LA fashion experts to set the world on fire with their wit, but the generally useless Giuliana Rancic and stylist Brad Goreski fall way short of the mark.
Rancic loved nearly every outfit she saw, and even in the case of the one that gave her pause, she had to assure the audience — and the greater Hollywood universe — that she “loved” Britney Spears before delivering her critique.
Goreski said nothing memorable, but bounced up and down on the white couch a lot.
Fortunately, Rivers booked two firecracker fashion “deputies,” guest stars Margaret Cho and NeNe Leakes, to add some cayenne to this dull talk soup.
Both women are a scream and either could have easily hosted the show on her own. When asked to critique singer Rita Ora’s voluminous, black-feathered evening wear, Cho cracked, “I didn’t know Vera Wang did a ‘Duck Dynasty’ collection.” When Miley wore her minimalist Versace outfit (one of 14 featured on the show, which she hosted), Cho got two good jokes out of it.
My favorite: “I think this is what hookers on Venus look like.” Leakes’ delivery is always dramatically funny and she doesn’t kowtow to what the Hollywood girls are saying (well, at least not yet). On Monday night, she even had the guts to call fan fave Taylor Swift’s designer workout gear the worst dress of the night. Will she be eating alone in a diner in Bakersfield Tuesday morning? Could happen.
The most puzzling segment of the hour was called “Housewife or Drag Queen” in which Gorescki, Rancic and Rivers fed saucy one-liners to Cho and Leakes, a former cast member of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” and they were asked to guess whether they were said by a drag queen (Cho allegedly knows “lots” of those) or one of the real Housewives. The girls were game, but guessed most of them wrong, proving that the Housewives are just about the bitchiest bitches who ever disgraced a TV screen.
Without the lacerating wit of Rivers (Joan, not Melissa), “Fashion Police” feels about a half-hour too long.
The same stars and same outfits were discussed multiple times when we all know there were loads of people at that MTV awards show. With the Emmys coming up next month, the producers have time to work out some of the kinks and get a better panel.
Or better yet, can Rancic and the boy and get Cho and Leakes full-time. They’re worth watching. Or just hire Don Rickles. He is as funny and as fearless as Joan was.
As for Melissa, she fades into the background. During her life, her mother tried to make her a star, but the spark, the quality, just isn’t there.