If Would It Kill You to Laugh? was the first episode of a sketch-comedy series from stars/creators Kate Berlant and John Early, it would be an uneven but somewhat promising start. But since the show is a single one-off special, there isn't much to recommend in this scattered collection of half-formed ideas and offbeat jokes, despite the obvious talents of its two creative forces. Berlant and Early are funny performers who've proved themselves in various other projects, and they both put their full efforts into this 52-minute special. Unfortunately, there's barely enough worthy material here for a 22-minute pilot.

Would It Kill You to Laugh? is framed by a recurring sketch starring Berlant and Early as versions of themselves, former friends and colleagues reuniting 20 years after a feud and a vaguely defined lawsuit tore them apart. Journalist and talk-show host Meredith Vieira appears as herself, hosting the fictional show Point of Vieira, a parody of self-important celebrity news magazines. Vieira reunites the former stars of the '90s sitcom He's Gay, She's Half-Jewish, and the interactions between the two are expert bits of cringe comedy.

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Kate Berlant and John Early in Would It Kill You to Laugh?

They also get run into the ground as Would It Kill You to Laugh? keeps returning to this same bit in between other unrelated sketches. The clips of He's Gay, She's Half-Jewish are spot-on spoofs of the kind of terrible '90s sitcoms that proliferated in the wake of the massive success of Friends, but they're only glimpsed briefly, with most of the time devoted to Berlant and Early's passive-aggressive insults at each other. Vieira is a good sport as the duo's comedic enabler -- especially for a joke in which they confuse her with Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric -- but there's no reason for this sketch to keep coming back as many times as it does.

The other sketches feature a handful of recurring bits but are otherwise entirely separate, and some of the humor is so dry that it's tough to get a handle on what the joke is meant to be. A sketch featuring Berlant and Early as dancers in what appears to be a troupe or class of kids rehearsing a show or perhaps just learning a routine is so vague that even the basic concept is unclear. Are the adult actors meant to be playing kids, like in PEN15? Are they meant to be adults who are inexplicably part of this kid group and see them as their peers? Either concept could be a source of humor, but the sketch is played so straight that there's no discernible joke at all.

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Kate Berlant and John Early in Would It Kill You to Laugh?

Elsewhere, obviously absurd premises are left mostly unexplored, like Would It Kill You to Laugh?'s most frequent joke about the use of melted caramel as currency. That pops up in two very similar sketches about friends eating at a restaurant -- one featuring Berlant and Early as a pair of superficial dudes, the other featuring them as flighty female friends. In both cases, the melted caramel is a surreal touch that augments an otherwise mundane exchange between two fairly dull characters. A brief moment of a strip club patron attempting to tip a dancer with melted caramel is the funniest use of the joke, without the belabored framework.

At least there's a joke to latch onto in these sketches. Another recurring bit in Would It Kill You to Laugh? is a massive hardcover novel that seems to be a popular sensation, introduced in a mildly amusing sketch starring Berlant and Early as book-club members who really don't want anyone to know they didn't read the book. The book itself shows up multiple times later on, with no function other than being a large, heavy tome. If audiences are straining so hard to find the humor in a single background detail, then the main point of the sketches has already been lost.

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Early spent five seasons perfecting dark, deadpan humor as a regular on Search Party, and some of that twisted sensibility comes through in Would It Kill You to Laugh?, especially in an uncomfortably long sketch featuring Berlant attempting to seduce Early. It's the kind of material that makes the audience unsure whether to laugh or cover their eyes, as some of the best episodes of Search Party often did. But, like too many of the sketches in Would It Kill You to Laugh?, it goes on past its breaking point and then ends without arriving at a punchline or a conclusion of any kind.

Early and Berlant clearly have a strong creative connection, and it's possible to see some of these oddball sketches developing into amusingly weird insular worlds over time. Instead, Would It Kill You to Laugh? ends with most of its potential left unexplored in yet another overlong sketch set in a restaurant. Early and Berlant stumble out of the restaurant as the end credits roll, looking just as lost as viewers are likely to feel.

Would It Kill You to Laugh? is now streaming on Peacock.