On the 13th of October, Bert Kreischer dropped his new show, The Cabin with Bert Kreischer and here is the premise: Bert goes to a cabin in the woods and does a bunch of random stuff with comedians. If you are already a fan of The Machine, this is probably appealing. For those not familiar with Kreischer, he is a stand-up comedian who caught a wave of fame several years ago with his famous “The Machine Story”, embedded below. Since then, his image hasn’t been particularly complex, but it has been fun. He runs a podcast called Two Bears One Cave with fellow comic Tom Segura and has released several successful specials on Netflix. He’s fun, approachable, and ridiculous. That being said, the show was a little disappointing.

Despite the idea behind the show being comfortably in line with Bert’s image and at least good enough to pique my interest, it was a bit of a letdown. It is set up as if Bert is going away to relax but simply cannot bring himself too and this aspect of it is communicated through weird staged video-calls with Bert’s wife. It is supposed to come across as fun and natural but it really makes the show feel fake and awkward.

Another aspect that really damaged the show was the editing choices. Whoever produced the show did a generally good job of finding ridiculous activities for the guests to engage in (though a few fall short), the editing takes out any story behind any of the activities. Each episode flickers between activities, cutting out so much content that there is very little feeling of continuity. Each episode is around 20 minutes long but there is no real need for this to be the case. As it is a Netflix exclusive, I see no reason that the show could have given more time to each activity, actually developing events into arcs as opposed to weirdly split-up moments of comedy.

Finally, onto the guests. If you are not familiar with the guests before watching, their comedy doesn’t really land because, as encouraged by the format and situation, it is largely jokes based on their stories and relationships. This is again largely due to the editing because the show is not put together in a way that properly introduces the guests at all. Also, the variety of the guests is a little random and, because each episode is so short, they feel randomly put together and it doesn’t feel like they are clicking. Also, many of the guests, such as Ms. Pat, and Fortune Feimster feel wedged in and don’t fit the feel of the show at all. The best episodes are easily those with comedians that already know one another (like Tom Segura and Joey Diaz or Donnell Rawlings and Bobby Lee).

Perhaps it would have been better if the guests stayed a week in the cabin and did longer activities, making each episode longer than the 20-minute constraint that feels unnecessary. That would allow for more comfortable editing without pacing issues and a better feel of each guest.

In summary, it’s entertaining but probably not worth the time. It’s much more worth watching one of Bert’s specials or checking out his podcast.

I hope you liked this post and please check out more of our content at ScreenHub Entertainment such as our update on the Amazon-headed Conan the Barbarian series or our suggestions for 6 time travel movies to watch before Tenet.