The Show With Vinny

When Vinny is one-on-one with his guests, as he says at the opening, he isn’t Jay Leno. But he is pretty funny.

The Show With Vinny, a contrived hybrid of a reality series and a talk show, is a surprisingly sweet exercise in hospitality and good cheer.

It's the anti-talk show, the talk show that isn't a talk show, the talk show from another planet--that would be Staten Island--talk show. And yet, in a weirdly unexpected way, it almost works--and potentially could work.

The Show With Vinny is better than Snooki & J-Woww and The Pauly D Project. That ain’t saying much.

It’s all good-natured. It’s also random.

First, the dreck: The best thing that can be said about the unscripted series The Show With Vinny, starring “Jersey” castoff Vinny Guadagnino, is that the half-hour bumbles along like Sunday dinner with your most annoying relatives.

Once you get past the initial idea, though, there’s nothing there, since Vinny --the ostensible brains of the outfit--has virtually nothing to say.