Because we have better things to do with our Wednesday nights (like watch Ryan Cabrera run around Liberty Island looking for friends) we didn't exactly plan time for the premiere of Bravo's ASSSSCAT: Improv.

Thankfully, we have interns whose duties extend beyond ensuring the proper espresso-to-milk ratio in our americanos. So we sicked Intern Molly on last night's Tina Fey-Amy Poehler collaboration, where she found the only thing worth laughing about was rape.

And rape's not funny. Unless it's Tina Fey making rape sound funny. And then it's funny. Says Molly:

About halfway through last night's premiere of Upright Citizen Brigade’s ASSSSCAT: Improv on Bravo, Horatio Sanz stars in a sketch as a man who has written a self-help book on breaking out of your "Shmold" (Shit Mold). Unfortunately, ASSSSCAT could use some Shmold-breaking of its own.

The full review after the jump.

About halfway through last night's premiere of Upright Citizen Brigade’s ASSSSCAT: Improv on Bravo, Horatio Sanz stars in a sketch as a man who has written a self-help book on breaking out of your "Shmold" (Shit Mold). Unfortunately, ASSSSCAT could use some Shmold-breaking of its own.

Improvisational comedy is notoriously hard to translate onto television, and though there were some shining moments, ASSSSCAT falls into the same trap.

he show is based on Upright Citizen Brigade's famous one-hour-long improvisational comedy show. The show stars a combination of familiar faces from the current SNL cast (Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Horatio Sanz), and semi-familiar faces from other comedy outlets (Kevin Dorff, Andy Richter).

Amy Poehler plays moderator for the performance, but the evening's "monologists" were Tina Fey and Andy Richter. One would think that, as professional comedians, they could talk for thirty seconds about random words like "ham" and "pointillism." Hell, I could do that.

Unfortunately, these folks cannot.

From there the actors launch into a series of improv skits based on the monologue. Highlights of this included the "Bulimia Sorority" pairing up with "Date Rape Fraternity" and a book tour Q&A period starring a "first-year acting student" who doesn’t have a question so much as he really likes to hear himself talk. The rest of these scenes fall into the category of "raping child actresses is always funny while imitating Sly Stallone as Rocky stopped being so about ten years ago."

The performers try to capture the magic of live theater, as bumbling and stuttering as that may be, but unfortunately most of the jokes fall shorter than Mario Cantone. At a live improv theater, it's easier to forgive painfully awkward jokes. On television, it is harder to hold back the cringe.

Slightly before halfway through the show you turn from "embarrassed about" to "embarrassed for," and this is after the first Hitler joke — and before the last one.