Please Like Me

Taylor Williamson wants you to like him. On stage, his whole persona is built on a nervous, dry desperation that worked wonders on America’s Got Talent in 2013, where he finished as the runner-up. Filmed in Denver, Colorado, and directed by Steven Feinartz, this 42-minute release marks his first proper stand-up special since that reality television run, capturing a comedian trying to transition brief TV sets into a sustainable live show.

Williamson addresses his time on television early, poking self-deprecating fun at losing the grand prize to a Japanese dancer. He spends the rest of his stage time on standard observational fodder: the sheer exhausting effort of dealing with strangers who talk on airplanes, the mysteries of duvets, his broken-home upbringing, and his lingering obsession with getting a kiss from Heidi Klum.

Because his style relies heavily on slow, awkward pacing and a halting delivery, the actual written material is relatively thin. To stretch the set to its modest runtime, Williamson spends considerable energy on crowd work and off-the-cuff asides. While his physical ticks and specific vocal cadences carry the performance for those already fond of his reality-show run, critics noted that the set occasionally struggles to fill the clock, highlighting the difficult gap between short-form competition comedy and a headlining club act.