If you were given the opportunity to host a TV show where you review (or assess) life experiences, would you take it? I guess it depends on how much you’re like Forrest MacNeil and how much you want to be like him.
Can you be as dedicated? Forrest’s dedication to his demanding job is enviable, despite the many issues he runs into in pursuit of his reviews, which you can catch every Thursday at 10/9c. Through it all, though, Forrest remains impressively positive. Sure, he’s had setbacks, but he keeps chugging along, living life to its fullest. Could you do the same if put into that position? Maybe you’re unsure. Maybe you need some kind of playbook derived from Forrest’s adventures. Well, using examples from season two of Review (and a classic from season one), we have compiled such a guide, so please take in the Forrest MacNeil guide to life.
Don’t be afraid to fall in love.
Sure, you’re putting your heart on the line, and maybe you’ll end up blackmailing your boyfriend or girlfriend for $500 a week, and if they don’t pay, you’ll tell his or her employer how he or she is stealing pills from a hospital, but it’s worth the risk.
“If you’re sick of it, change it.”
Inspiring words from Forrest, who helped cure a self-loathing gay man… by hooking him up with someone named Pete. Let him have this one.
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
Forrest has been blessed with a privileged life of being near the average height of an American male, give or take an inch. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be a little person, where everything’s just out of reach. But he wants to. So, Forrest surrounds himself with comically large pencils and scissors before realizing it’s “time to get serious,” and begins scooting around on his knees. When’s the last time you put yourself in someone else’s shoes (or, um, kneepads)?
Live a Five-Star life.
How you earn those five stars is up to you. Some may want to help those less unfortunate than them while others form an identically dressed cult whose followers must build a space ark and cater to the whims of their horny ruler. Totally your choice, as long as you never mention anything having to do with six stars. That’s just crazy talk.
Save, Save, Save.
Having money for a rainy day is nice, but what happens when that rainy day arrives? Then you’ll need some dough, fast. Good thing you’ve got your retirement fund. It’d be nice to, y’know, keep that money for when you’re actually retired, but there are more important things than your future. Like paying a “shortstopman” $40,000 to catfish your ex-wife. That’s a wise investment, one you couldn’t make if you didn’t save, save, save.
Stop and smell the roses.
You’re stressed and busy. We all are. Sometimes, you need to stop and smell the roses, or in Forrest’s case, stop and be alone in a rowboat. There’s something incomparably peaceful about floating on the water by your lonesome, so much so that you might fall asleep and drift out to sea and not be found for 96 days. In which case, you can still stop but don’t smell anything, especially yourself, because you’re probably trapped in a floating garbage island.
When you say you’re going to do something, do it.
Forrest’s mind almost literally explodes when a viewer asks him what it’s like to give something six stars. How would that even work?!? He finds a work-around: A new show called Assess, which inevitably leads to a show within a show within a show, Evaluate, where he reviews, er, evaluates things using a six-star system. That thing… getting kicked in the balls. A.J. does the honors, but she only makes contact with a single ball. Forrest is in horrible pain, but he agreed to be smashed in the BALLS, plural, and by jove, he’s a man of his words. So, he gets smashed in the balls. Such dedication.
Why not eat 30 pancakes?
Why not 30, indeed.
To learn more about life from Forrest, check out Review, tonight and every Thursday at 10/9c on Comedy Central, or anytime on the Comedy Central app!
