I have always been a big fan of Whitney Cummings. She was unpredictable, bawdy and hilarious. I'll never forget the first time I saw her standup act. How the mighty have fallen! I don't mind a certain level of mean-spiritedness, but Whitney's view of men seems to have devolved, and that's putting it mildly. Sure, there are male morons in the world, and it's perfectly acceptable to mine some humor out of that. But based on this hour, you'd think all of us want to choke her and degrade her in ways I'd never even heard of before. The special starts amiably enough, but it gradually becomes an all-out hatefest, with so much negative preaching and scorn that I began to seriously wonder who green-lit this alleged comedy taping. Forget the punch lines—Whitney would rather punch your lights out.

I was very reluctant to watch another special by Cummings after how terrible her other one was, but for reasons I don't fully understand I really wanted to like her.

Unfortunately, she is just NOT a good comic.

Her writing might be funny on a sitcom, but she just hasn't gotten her act down yet at all. Her delivery is mediocre, and her jokes are forced and unfunny. Look, I don't object to making fun of men for liking porn, but if you're going to do that at least do so in an honest way.

Comedy is art, and art should reflect truth; Whitney's jokes about men and porn come across as a repudiation of all men (and their perceived preferences) due to a bad experience she had with an ex-boyfriend. While that in and of itself can surely be fodder for a good joke, the material that she has created about men and porn are based not in genuine criticism but in her frustration in an inability to live up to her perceptions of male expectations. There is some humor and truth in that, but Whitney is frankly not talented enough to explore those topics in an engaging way.

There were a few chuckles here and there, but overall I don't find her to be humorous. It seems like she is doing her career backwards; she gained fame for writing on sitcoms and then tried her hand at stand up. She either hasn't put in the work in the clubs or she hasn't learned anything from her time in them. Regardless, this special is not very good and there is literally no reason to watch it.

Though Whitney starts by engaging the audience as a way for them to relate to her self-deprecating humor — it comes across as rage. What should be a funny trip into role reversal and observational humor ends up as a 59 minute rant about how unfair life is, now that Whitney is in her 30s, has the career that she's always wanted and has money. To quote the Atlantic's Megan Garber, "To the extent that I'm Your Girlfriend, for all its jokes about porn, ends up scanning, at times, more like a sermon. Or a lecture. Or a TED Talk."

The full article which dissects why the is special is so uneven can be googled. Use the search terms "The Triumph of Soap-Box Comedy, Whitney Cummings's new HBO special, I'm Your Girlfriend, often sounds like a TED Talk. It's in good company."