Full House No More: Full House Tonight Airs Finale Saturday

‘Full House Tonight’ airs its finale this Saturday night. (Logo courtesy of GMA Network)

GMA’s own attempt to recreate ‘Saturday Night Live’ for Filipinos is officially out.

The last episode of ‘Full House Tonight’ will take place this Saturday night, owing to host Regine Velasquez’s inclusion to the cast of ‘Mulawin vs. Ravena’. However, Regine’s addition to the said fantaserye is not the main reason why ‘Full House Tonight’ will come to an end.

First airing on February 18, 2017, ‘Full House Tonight’ was a comedy-musical variety show that focuses on comedic performances from a select group of professional comedians. In essence, this program was viewed as a primetime version of ‘Sunday PinaSaya’, and it drew comparisons to the long-running American variety show ‘Saturday Night Live’.

Unfortunately, ‘Full House Tonight’ failed to deliver during its soon-to-be 14-episode run. The show was placed against powerhouse ABS-CBN reality shows ‘Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7’ and ‘I Can Do That’, and the expectations to stand out against both shows were too much to bear.

Not only that, most of the comedians in ‘Full House Tonight’ were hardly household names at all. That, along with Regine’s co-hosts/performers being relegated to the background, contributed to its demise.

It’s a shame that ‘Full House Tonight’ will go down swinging after this Saturday. Let’s face it, Regine hosting a comedy show is an insult to her reputation, considering her lack of comedic background unlike her husband Ogie Alcasid.

Perhaps GMA would have spiced the show up with guest celebrity hosts rather than Regine pulling all the strings. Had they done that, not to mention further training for the comedians and stars involved (if any), ‘Full House Tonight’ would have lasted longer than the 14 episodes it will accumulate at the end.

Alas, ‘Full House Tonight’ will go down as one of the most forgettable programs in GMA lore. If there is any consolation, it was that they put a lot of effort to produce a show like this, even if it goes in vain.

Come this Saturday, a final round of applause will be needed to send off ‘Full House Tonight’. So long, and good riddance.

Advertisement

SNL Outdated on Jack TV

In the United States, ‘Saturday Night Live’ has become the ‘Banana Sundae’ of the American people.

After all, the NBC-produced comedy variety show aired 41 seasons since it first started in 1975. Today, ‘Saturday Night Live’ is on its 42nd season and its skits are as funny as ever.

In the Philippines, ‘Saturday Night Live’ is currently aired on Jack TV. But unlike a majority of Jack TV’s shows, ‘Saturday Night Live’ is one of a select few that do not air either via satellite, within hours, or within a week of original U.S. telecast.

In fact, while the show is on its 42nd season in the U.S., Jack TV is still airing the previous season’s set of episodes. Their reasoning is unclear, but due to the Philippines’ strict broadcast regulations, it is likely that Jack TV opted not to air the current season due to fears of profanity and the possible presence of offensive skits.

Sadly, that one-season delay meant that Jack TV will have to wait a year before they can air parodies of the just-concluded 2016 U.S. presidential election. It’s too bad, since the ‘Saturday Night Live’ skits involving eventual winner Donald Trump (portrayed by Alec Baldwin) and Hillary Clinton (portrayed by Kate McKinnon) were trending in various news outlets.

Quite frankly, viewers were missing out on the fun. And it’s not a good thing, considering the recent trend of various cable networks that air new episodes of popular imported shows.

To make matters worse, the presence of streaming sites made watching ‘Saturday Night Live’ online even easier. That said, with these predicaments, Jack TV is clearly at a disadvantage with the said show.

It remains to be seen if Jack TV can finally catch up to what has been an overly outdated and irrelevant broadcast of ‘Saturday Night Live’. Unless the Solar Entertainment-owned network changes its routine soon, the show could become a footnote to an otherwise impressive programming lineup.