There's nothing quite like bombastic comedy magic philosopher Penn Jillette screaming about orgasms. Unless it's a self-proclaimed "erotic rock star" on stage warbling about them. Or a "tantric" master teaching naked women how to literally gush forth with liquid proof of "nothing less than the ever-beating heart of the cosmos."
Ain't it great to have Penn & Teller: Bullshit! back?
Yes, the mad debunkers go after orgasms in the premiere of their adult show's seventh season for Showtime, Thursday at 10 p.m. ET. (The half-hour repeats Friday at 10 p.m. ET and other times all week. It's also waiting at Showtime on Demand.)
Not that Penn & Teller declare orgasms aren't real. (What isn't real is astrology, and that's next week, July 2.) No, P&T really like orgasms. "They're free, they're legal, they burn calories," affirms Penn, the tall, loud one, standing next to stage partner Teller, the small, silent one.
In fact, this latest installment of their freewheeling investigations into assorted dubious aspects of life -- creationism, alien abductions, alternative medicine, 12-stepping, recycling -- is a bit out of character. Typically, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!challenges conventional wisdom and counter-claims to a two-out-of-three verbal wrestling match, assertions vs. facts. This involves setting up straw fish to shoot in a barrel, which mixes metaphors but conveys how P&T unearth the weirdest adherents of whatever they're testing, then skewer them with footage where they babble absurdly, so Penn can berate them profanely in his narrating bellow.
But orgasms? What's the CW? There really isn't one. But since there are oddballs opining weirdly on a hot topic, that's all P&T need. If the "erotic rock star" performs in a black leather jockstrap -- and no, that in itself hardly rates as strange here -- then P&T narrate a host segment wearing black leather jockstraps. They go on to spotlight a pain management doctor who has invented an "orgasmatron" implant for women to operate via remote control for instant jollies. That's not free, but it seems to be legal, and --
Oh, never mind. The idea is to let high-dudgeon Penn bloviate till he nearly bursts a blood vessel, and he is really, really, almost pee-ingly funny doing it. So nitpicking seems beside the point. And these guys do have a point, which is, roughly, to uphold science and reason above wackadoodle dreams and emotion. They don't like seeing the little folks taken for a ride by the big "visionaries."
It's an extension of Penn & Teller's original magic presentations, where they'd show '80s audiences precisely how they were being distracted and misled. But it's also a political statement -- they're libertarian science-lovers who aren't going to believe in God until God appears in their presence and does something, well, magical. (Ideally, on camera.) They're skeptics of everything.
Which is what makes P&T: BS! such a consistent delight. Instead of bludgeoning only the obvious bunk -- next week's show finds Penn stunned that they haven't stomped on astrology yet -- they attack more complicated topics. The July 9 show assesses video games by doing "what any show would do when the network's lawyer leaves on vacation," says Penn -- hand a 9-year-old gamer an automatic weapon to see what happens.
BS!is also beautifully produced. Videotape reports are framed just-so to make the (alleged) wackos look even weirder, and they're tightly edited to spotlight the (alleged) strangeness. Penn & Teller's in-studio host segments take cues from the subject with themed costumes, props and (non-alleged) naked people whenever possible. (Premium cable, you know.) And Penn's over-amped rants as narrator also happen to be finely honed pieces of writing, theater and agitprop. Even if they're going after something you yourself might believe in, their assaults remain laugh-out-loud funny. Even when they hurt.
And that's entertainment, folks. No bullshit.