Available in 190 countries, three times a week, Chelsea Handler will be invading Netflix with her new talk show, “Chelsea”, starting May 11. A teacher who, by her own admission, will smoke pot with you before, after, and even during class. She’ll even sleep with you if you’re lucky.
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Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, said Handler’s willingness to inject herself into unfamiliar situations and bring a wry humor to these explorations suggested that she could carry a show more expansive than “Chelsea Lately”. For additional video content, click the “video” tab at the top of this page.
Chelsea also assured fans of “Chelsea Does” during a Q&A that she will be mixing elements of her previous documentary series with interviews and comedy. “I don’t want anyone ever to say, ‘Oh, she’s an idiot'”.
Yet the first episode that made its debut Wednesday opted not to use any of them.
Ouch. Chelsea ended its first episode with Handler rapping with Pitbull as she stood on a spinning table, her two dogs running around.
The clip also finds her asking a group of polygamists to join their marriage, interviewing ignorant kids about the upcoming election, ice skating, smoking, having champagne poured on her chest, and all the other wild things you’d expect from her. If you can think of it, it looks like Handler will do it in Chelsea. “Chelsea” will have new shows every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and analyst Richard Greenfield notes that it could prove to be a way for Netflix to introduce a recurring (and low-cost) relationship with subscribers – to keep them from canceling.
To her credit, Handler has been nothing but trouble – hurling barbs of the most entertaining and enjoyable variety – since we first noticed her as a practical joker on the hidden-camera show Girls Behaving Badly (2002-2005). When profiled by the NYT, Handler emphasized that she didn’t “want people turning it on and seeing the same thing…” “What you want is somebody who’s super-curious and, in Chelsea’s case, remarkably amusing”. But there are moments in the premiere when Handler got serious about education, or when Barrymore got serious about her divorce, and they gave the show a little meat. I want to do a show that’s smarter than me. “Here I am. Did you miss me?”
Handler began the candid conversation singing Barrymore’s praises.
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Handler joked, “I’m not naked today because I feel very bloated”. And the famously outspoken comedian isn’t holding back in her new venue, because as she tells one interviewee in her new trailer, “Oh, you can say anything, it’s Netflix!”.
