Show: Scare Tactics (Sci Fi)
Episode: “Satan’s Baby” – Season Premiere (Season 3)
Premiere Date: Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
Rating: 1.5 out of 4 Stars
Quick Synopsis: Scary Candid Camera.
Long Synopsis: People setup their friends to get scared, like getting them a temp job at a clinic where they end up in the delivery room with a woman that has a seriously bad delivery or another guy that sees too much while working around a wood chipper.
Review: Scare Tactics is Candid Camera or more recently something like Girls Behaving Badly or Punk’d with a horror/scary twist and is hosted by Tracy Morgan (30 Rock). Too bad he isn’t all that funny when Tina Fey (30 Rock) isn’t writing his lines. He is completely wasted here in subdued role, sitting in a chair introducing clips.
In the promos for the show, Tracy says, “Fear is funny.” Well, it might be, but not so much the way they are showing it here. You might get a small chuckle in this episode and maybe a smile, but that can’t be what they were going for.
For me, the clips didn’t have enough setup for you to feel involved. Someone saying that they were setting up their friend because their friend was usually the prankster just isn’t enough.
Also, once the scenario starts to play out, there isn’t much intro to the situation before they are attempting to scare the person. Then once it gets started it’s over pretty quick.
Overall, each prank plays out too fast and doesn’t get a chance to develop much before the person is let off the hook. If you are looking for something to watch on another woeful Wednesday night, then it will help you pass the time. But, if you are looking for a laugh, you might want to check out TBS, I here it’s very funny.
Scare Tactics premieres tonight, July 9th on Sci Fi and is followed by a second new episode, which is actually worse than the first.
