Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 3.10

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 3.10
Channel Four
22 March 1991
Improv Game Show
VHS
C+

First off, yes, I'm still counting this episode as "British," even though it was filmed in New York and Clive makes remarks like, "You're pulling up to what we in America call a gas station."  Even with two Americans on the line-up, plus Canadian Ryan, and a loud, sometimes Arsenio-ing NYC crowd, it's still a production for Channel Four, with Clive, Richard, Josie, and all the behind-the-scenes Brits.

Second of all, I'd like to give this a B-, but the last two games, Helping Hands and Hoedown, are real duds.  Before that though, we not only have Meskimen doing some impressive impressions, especially Sting, but also the first genuine Ryan/Josie sightings.  (I don't count her playing his ex-wife in their first episode.  That American Musical was arguably more Mike/Josie.)  Not only does he confuse and amuse her as a crazed Expert on watermelons, but they get pretty raunchy in their FATS, surprisingly more in melodrama, where she's on her knees in front of him, crying, "What am I to do?", than in that noted Theatre Style "orgasm."

Thirdly, Smith is much more forgettable than his comedy partner.  Sweeney & Steen are closer to equals, especially the following year.

Fourthly, Ryan has to read the closing credits as a "bad Shakespearean actor," when he'd recently played a good Shakespearean actor on Who's the Boss?