One thing you can say about Season Four of Last Comic Standing is that it’s full of surprises. The comics may not be all that funny, the editing may be choppy, the preliminary selections of comics may have been suspicious, and Anthony Clark may look like he’s embalmed. But you can’t deny that the comics being eliminated aren’t the ones anyone expected to go so early. Unfortunately, the by-product of these surprises is a set of finalists (the set of comics that will perform live and have the viewing audience vote by phone, text, and web) that is a pretty uncompelling set of personalities and, for the most part, not very funny.

It’s good that the LCS producers are moving out of the “house” and on to the live challenge rounds after only three weeks; the group that was selected isn’t generating any drama, alliances, or funny situations. It would have been death to see them in the house for five weeks, which was the pattern in Season Two.

The challenges haven’t been all that inspiring, either. This week’s challenge, a roast, was done in Season Two; the only added twist is that there was no immunity available for this challenge, so the winner only got a Friar’s Club membership and an opening slot in a Louie Anderson show (Wow. Opening for Louie Anderson. What, The Unknown Comic wasn’t available?). So there was actually no point to the challenge but to show something in this episode. And it showed in the comics’ performances.

About the roast: It was good to see Jimmy Norton be the roastmaster, even though they didn’t really show him saying anything funny. I guess it was a little payback for being unfairly booted before the finals of Season Two. Alonzo Bodden, Phyllis Diller, and Gilbert Gottfried (who’s as annoying as Kathy Griffin, but is much funnier) were the judges.

The selected roastee was Gabriel Iglesias, and mostly everyone told fat jokes. Rebecca Corry’s jokes pretty much ended with the words “‘Cause he’s fat!” Kristen Key bombed. Ty Barnett was bland. Josh Blue’s jokes almost made sense, but didn’t (”They say you are what you eat. That poor Korean family.” Wha? Did he miss a couple of words there, like “then you must be a poor Korean family”?). Roz yelled a lot. Chris Porter was the only one who pulled off good lines, spreading the wealth like a good roaster should. He said to Diller, “I remember reading about you in the encyclopedia,” and he said about Norton, “He lives in my neighborhood; I know this because the cops made him go around and tell us.” It was pretty obvious he was going to win this, even though there was no real prize to win.

So, the comics were going to the head-to-head in order to narrow things to the final five. What’s that you say? You thought they were supposed to whittle down to six tonight? Well, they were, until the roastee, Gabriel, got caught trying to contact with cell phones and Blackberries and got kicked out. You see, to prevent leaks and to prevent the comics from getting jokes on the outside, they’re only supposed to call the outside world at designated times. But Gabriel missed his girlfriend so much that he snuck calls to her on more than one occasion. So the producers had to kick him out. They didn’t play up this drama at all; there was a scene where he gets caught with a Blackberry, one where he talks to the executive producers, and all of a sudden, he’s gone. They could have played this up a little more, especially considering Gabriel was the last “big white whale” — a nationally-known and well-respected comic — left. But, oh well. The show must go on, as Clark read to the remaining seven comics.

The head-to-head had Ty, Kristen, and Rebecca squaring off. Ty was again bland. Kristen was OK, but not as funny as she was in the earlier rounds. Rebecca, of course, was terrible, shaking her ass and kicking as she talked. As distracting as she was, it didn’t prevent me from seeing how painfully unfunny she was. So, the fact that Ty made it to the final five didn’t really phase me too much. All three pretty much sucked tonight. Ty just sucked less.

So, we’re down to Chris, Josh, Ty, Michele, and Roz (how Roz hasn’t been challenged to this point is beyond me). I don’t see how anyone’s going to beat out Chris and Josh, but, again, this season has held quite a number of surprises so far. Including the next surprise: Gabriel’s spot is likely to be filled in by whomever wins the online vote amongst the comics eliminated in the preliminary stage. I’m hoping it’s Doug Benson, because this contest desperately needs some more funny.