Ilana Glazer's 'The Planet Is Burning' is stand-up comedy at its best with a fun quirky take on the 'planet'
This review might contain spoilers. So, if you are yet to watch the hour-long special, we strongly recommend you pause reading and tune into Amazon Prime Video right away!
As the camera starts rolling and lights turn on, Glazer walks to the front stage, dancing away to Rihanna's 'Sex With Me' and ending her intro with a pretty impressive (we must say) twerking session as she greets her audience.
How many times have you seen a stand-up act start like that? And how many stand-up comedians, particularly women, will take you through their rawest, unfiltered best? Not many, we would say.
Reviewing a comedy show, especially a stand-up, has become quite monotonous. People talk about the timing, the sketch, the flow, the topics, delivery, and so on and so forth. Let's not do all that today.
Because, Glazer’s show does all that all right, but it is immensely refreshing than many we have seen. And it is so because she makes our focus shift from what she does to who she is!
She is a celebrated comedian, an actor with a hit television show, a creator, social influencer, and yet, she stands there stripping herself off her fame and popularity, one layer at a time.
And as we get to see more of Ilana Glazer, we cannot stop falling in love with her. To start with, her sense of humor is simply brilliant. She doesn't talk about feminine issues, or pull a pun on current global politics, not even relationship quirks, which are by far the most in-demand subjects of comedy.
Glazer talks about you and us in day-to-day life. Take menstrual hygiene for instance. In how many situations have you found this subject to be "funny" and not preachy? We can say for sure not many.
And the best part is how she delivers her sketches in explosive and explicit format to the extent that you can even see a personality in the objects that she talks about.
Then there are topics like "women's razors". Things that matter in our daily lives, but never paid attention to or given a humor angle. This is exactly where Glazer finds her niche, and aesthetically so.
She is cool, fun, perky, and yet, aesthetic in her deliveries. Perhaps that comes from being seasoned in comedy, creating your own show and taking it to the top.
If we had to point at the best part of 'The Planet Is Burning', it is her entire take on homophobia and the way she weaves it into world politics, pop culture, and defining human personalities, but making it ultimately quirky and utmost fun, all the way.
While many talk about the same sentiment, they eventually take it to the level of "lessons learned" or "taught". Glazer didn't want us to "learn" anything from her gig.
She wanted us to have fun and see the world for the way it is, not even through her lens. She speaks what sometimes we probably think but never voice it and that makes her sketches all the more relatable.
Now, for the moment of truth on the show. However, that truth is not as hard or bitter as you would start to imagine.
It's just that almost after three-quarters of her sketch, her delivery started to feel a little dragged, and we started to feel restless about how it is all going to culminate into a holistic ending. Sadly enough, it didn't quite end in a way we had expected.
All said and done, Ilana Glazer's first stand-up production seems quite promising and will probably lead to more such interesting shows from the star comedian.
In other words, if you are still contemplating on whether to watch the comedy special show, then, here's our reassurance of how exceptional it is (except for the ending)!
'The Planet Is Burning' is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.