Las Vegas Weekly

June 26, 2009 · 12:04 PM

Penn & Teller’s Bull fails to, um, satisfy

By Ken Miller

Penn & Teller.

Photo: Scott Doctor/www.greatscottstudios.com

Let’s hope they were just getting the weak material out of the way early. Penn & Teller: Bullshit began its seventh season Thursday night, and the topic was one designed to raise either hackles or temperatures, depending on what political party you belong to: orgasms. Problem is, it contained none of the elements that have made P&T’s best episodes classics of their type.

I’m a huge fan of this show. Every episode is a mini-documentary of how much we Americans take as gospel (Bible episode, anyone?) and how important it is that we ask questions. And if things get a bit snarky, hey, all the better.

But this is easily the limpest episode to date. Yeah, the duo make half-hearted attempts to tie the show’s theme with the various ways designed to make people come (mostly women, natch), but with the exception of a crazy doctor who’s invented an Orgasmatron (yes, he called it that; at least he’s a fan of Sleeper), almost everything detailed in this episode–therapists, an orgasm class, an "erotic rock star"–is pretty tame and not really deserving of outrage, fake or otherwise. HBO’s Real Sex traversed this territory already, albeit without Penn Gillette’s narration. (Really guys? There are women who can ejaculate? That’s quite a revelation–for people who live in caves.)

The good news is that their upcoming topics include video games, taxes and the Vatican, so the memory of this turkey won’t last long.

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