Have we seen the last of ?Last Comic Standing??

The ‘Last Comic Standing’ final five: Roy Wood Jr., Mike DeStefano, Tommy Johnagin, Myq Kaplan and Felipe Esparza (to the right of host Craig Robinson). (NBC) Last Comic Standing announced its seventh winner on Monday night. Question is, will that be the last Last Comic Standing ? Unfortunately, according to Media Life magazine, NBC’s comedy competition received its lowest rating for a season finale in its history. Not good, considering it was up against the series premiere of ABC’s patchwork reality show Bachelor Pad and reruns ( LCS also finished behind a repeat of Big Bang Theory over on CBS). And considering it took last summer off — officially, LCS was actually canceled, then brought back to life for 2010 — this might not bode well. SPOILER ALERTS AFTER THE JUMP. The competition came down to Myq Kaplan, Mike DeStefano, Roy Wood Jr., Tommy Johnagin and the winner, Felipe Esparza. Esparza pulled in $250,000 and a development deal with NBC. First off, for those who hadn’t watched the show and aren’t familiar with Felipe — and I can’t help but call him that — he’s one of these naturally funny guys who would show up on stage with a tie over a polo shirt. Pretty sure the tie’s a clip-on. Just a shambling mass o’ comedy. ‘LCS’ champ Felipe Esparza hugs ‘08 winner Ilisa Shlesinger. (NBC) Personally, I know Felipe from someone else’s jokes — he’s the best friend of Gabriel Iglesias, and the main character in a lot of Iglesias’ best material. Check out this link for a classic bit featuring Felipe. The thing about Felipe — at least to me — is I don’t think he can carry a full 60-minute special. Again, it’s not that this guy isn’t funny — he can get me going — but after a while, the whole persona and scattershot jokes wear on me. Personally, I would’ve liked to have seen either DeStefano (who finished fourth) or Kaplan (fifth) much higher. During the series, DeStefano had a very honest style — he was more than willing to dive into material about being a drug addict and going through recovery — and was a steady presence on stage. Kaplan, meanwhile, had a bizarre sense of humor that wasn’t for everyone, but when he was “on”, he could get the whole place going. The two-hour finale had a huge share of filler material — some of it was winning, like Kathy Griffin’s mini-set, but most wasn’t worth seeing, including the sets of judges Andy Kindler, Natasha Leggero and Greg Giraldo, skits by host Craig Robinson, and the 5-minute set by 2008 defending champ Ilisa Shlesinger. As SheckyMagazine.com ‘s Brian McKim and Traci Skene (both of whom auditioned for the show) wrote: “Instead of handing over a bronzed rubber chicken to Kurt Metzger (for having ‘the best material outside the top 10′), how about letting Metzger do a tight five instead?” Of the five finalists, I think Johnagin and Wood will continue workmanlike careers with maybe a foray onto Comedy Central; DeStefano may be able to parlay this into some smaller film roles; Kaplan may be looking at a big writing career, and Felipe… well, he I could see doing a sitcom. All they’d have to do is turn both his and Iglesias’ bits into 22 minutes of gold. That I’d watch. Otherwise, he might be relegated to the back pages of history, like several other winners — Dat Phan, Jon Reep, even Shlesinger hasn’t quite set the world on fire just yet. Excerpt from:� Have we seen the last of ?Last Comic Standing??

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