While Spike TV took their first real shot at making a comedy show with Players, they must not care about how it performs, because they’ve moved it around and pushed it back so many times. I reviewed the pilot episode back in the beginning of March, after which they aired two more episodes and then completely stopped. And while I may have called the first episode “not quite amazing,” the subsequent episodes really hit their stride, and it turned into one of the better comedies on the air. Without enough time to gain a real following and most of the news about the show coming from Matt Walsh’s Twitter, it didn’t look good. With those decisions, I don’t trust Spike any more than I do FOX.

The fourth episode just aired, however, so here I am, trying to do my part in spreading the word of what I think is a hilarious show. If you don’t already know, the show is basically entirely improvised with a few written plot lines to go by. They jump right into a showcase of wit right from the beginning, riffing on the artistic aspects of what’s supposed to be a simple sign, one drawn by Ian Robert’s character Ken, who’s worried about breaking the health code from the rest of the staff eating people’s leftover food. This would probably be called the B-story this episode, but it gets about equal time as the A-story of Matt Walsh’s character Bruce and his pathetically funny gambling problem.

This brings us to the the episode title of “Intervention,” which is the point his problem gets to. The lie that brings him to the event has him showing up in a huge top hat and a great suit that would put even Paul F. Tompkins to shame. The really great aspects of the show come out when the cast all gets together and plays off each other, and this scene is another great example. I don’t want to ruin anything, but it does involve Asian strippers which I would assume is one of the better ways to end an intervention. While I already thought the episode was great at this point, I fell in love with it once Andy Daly was brought into the picture as Walsh’s sponsor.

While he was only in it for the last 4 minutes, he handed out some amazing laughs trying to help Walsh, only to go off the deep end entirely himself. All it took was a hidden Craps table behind a corkboard. The way Daly slowly realizes he’s back gambling and then drinking couldn’t have been played any funnier in my opinion. Still what blows my mind is that they rolled the camera, and he made all of that up on the spot. That is just undeniable talent, and everyone on this show constantly proves they are capable of making solid jokes. Even if the plotlines aren’t Emmy worthy, they keep managing to top themselves each episode with great guest stars and even better laughs. Spike TV, 11 PM Wednesdays. We just lost Party Down, and I for one don’t want to lose another great comedy show. I highly suggest you check it out.