“Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris” is Absurd and Awesome

Shows usually fall into a particular category: game show, variety show, reality show, sitcom, etc. Rarely do you watch a show and think this is the best thing ever, but what the hell is it? Neil Patrick Harris has managed to do just that.

“Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris” (NBC, Tuesdays, 10/9c) is live. And that is perfect, because NPH without a net is great teevee. The frenetic energy of the “End of the Show Show” encapsulates everything we loved about the show, without being anything like any other part of the show.

Having read NPH’s awesome autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography,we get the sense that “Best Time Ever” is a pretty good approximation of what it would be like to live an hour in NPH’s head – singing, dancing, magic and comedy, all wrapped up in a fantastic suit.

The show began with Reese Witherspoon being generally adorable and clever, moved on to a long con where Neil Patrick Harris showed up at audience members’ events — and no, I’m not giving away the punchline, so go watch it on the web. The conclusion? Gloria Gaynor and a nationwide sing-a-long/karaoke competition! Also, yes: there was disco roller skating à la Xanadu.

Amazing, great show. Wait. No. That was the conclusion of the first segment. Which might be why esteemed publications like Variety described the show as “perplexing as it was distracting.” Variety, you are wrong. Also, Washington Post, suck it. Some of us like a good fever dream.

After this awesome intro, you might wonder what the very talented NPH would do to top it? Surely, the show fizzled after that. You are so very wrong! Reese and NPH participated in a death defying “American Ninja Warrior” type competition, where they essentially raced to climb a scaffold the size of a skyscraper suspended from a crane. Live.

Yep. Live. Before the pair went back and finished the show. Which wasn’t even remotely finished, because NPH still had to prank Carson Daly and The Voice, host a mini game-show in which he gave away thousands of dollars in prizes and pull off a choreographed back flip of a pogo-stick on the aforementioned “End of the Show Show” bit.

What does all this prove? That NPH is a god among men and we should all tune in next Tuesday to the next episode of “Best Time Ever” — because it kind of was the best time ever.

Featured Image: Greg Endries/NBC