Comedians’ quixotic quests to delve into childhood obsessions or obtain unusual goals properly outdoors their areas of experience are sometimes relegated to the podcast format, and the Canadian sequence “I Have Nothing” (on Peacock) has that very same ramshackle, worlds-collide fashion. Fortunately it’s a TV present, as a result of its premise is a visible one: the creation and efficiency of a pairs figure-skating routine set to Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing.”
The comic Carolyn Taylor (“Baroness von Sketch Present”) was a child in the course of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, and people Video games left an actual impression, particularly the determine skating. The Battle of the Brians, Katarina Witt, Gordeeva and Grinkov — the very best of highs. A long time later, with no connection to the game in any respect, Taylor hears Whitney Houston on the radio and is struck by a imaginative and prescient, one which she and maybe solely she will make actual on this planet. She needs to create a pairs program to Houston’s banger, and she will image the entire thing: the jumps and the lifts, the footwork sequences, the open-armed glides and intense expressions.
So she decides to reply this calling, to choreograph a routine for Olympic-level skaters. She will barely skate and doesn’t know any of the terminology, however she forges forward. “Can’t this be a ‘buffoon makes good’ story?” she asks her pal, the comic Mae Martin.
It could actually; it’s; “buffoon makes good” is an ideal strategy to describe the six-part docu-comedy. Taylor goes proper to the highest and enlists the Canadian choreographer, broadcaster and skater Sandra Bezic as a mentor, and far of the present is constructed on Bezic’s experience (and, seemingly, Rolodex). Just a few false begins really feel like filler at the start. However by Episode 3, issues are actually occurring, and by some means the Olympic champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and David Pelletier are on board to skate this system.
In case you are an individual who values preparedness, “Nothing” will fry the hair off your head with Taylor’s lack thereof — although finally her insanity reveals its strategies. A lot of the present is performed for cringe, however everybody’s enthusiasm tends to soften that awkwardness. A number of figure-skating legends contribute experience and recommendation, and two Canadian skaters Taylor worshiped in her youth, Kurt Browning and Brian Orser, even get on the ice along with her to assist codify her concepts. The great nature on show right here is genuinely transferring, and the determine skating ain’t dangerous both.
SIDE QUESTS
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In case you are craving extra determine skating, the documentary sequence “Harlem Ice,” concerning the coaches and younger skaters at Determine Skating in Harlem, debuts Wednesday, on Disney+.
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Pelletier is among the principal topics of the terrific documentary sequence “Meddling” (on Peacock), concerning the 2002 pairs figure-skating judging scandal.
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“Baroness von Sketch Present” is accessible on the Roku Channel.