Lest you think this is a rehash of that old "Daily Show"/Tom Green/"Jackass" formula, wherein an ironic hipster does his very best to make an ass of his unsuspecting victims, think again. Cohen's approach is far more nuanced and far more entertaining -- you really have to see it to believe it. He doesn't merely provoke, he absolutely inhabits his character the way only the best comedians can (Will Ferrell, Maya Rudolph and Danny Hoch spring to mind). Obviously he sells it, because those he interviews seem to buy it completely. Still, the joy doesn't come in their being duped. If anything, we enjoy the participants' personalities just as much as Cohen's alter egos, and we applaud them for gamely cooperating with his antics.

And cooperate they do. For some reason, most of the interviewees seem more likely to comply with Cohen's characters' requests than they would if he were a regular journalist. Not only do they play along, but they apologize for misunderstanding, even when he's describing something raunchy or rude. In one such scene, Ali G grills Former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh about a particular law.

Ali G: "What exactly is the law of cutting the cheese? I don't know what they call it here. You know, whoever smelt it, dealt it?"

Thornburgh: "I don't know if there's any law that covers that."

Ali G: "Is the definition, 'Whoever smelt it, dealt it,' or is it 'Whoever said the rhyme, committed the crime'?"

Thornburgh: "I understand what you're saying! Criminal liability can attach to a person who does an act ..."

Ali G (helpfully): "The one who cut the cheese."

Thornburgh: "A person who aids or assists the person ..."

Ali G: "The one who smelt it."

Thornburgh: "Or the one who agrees on a plan to do the criminal act."

Ali G: "The one who dealt it!"

As juvenile as such questioning might be, with Thornburgh's unknowing collaboration, the interview evolves into a brilliant scene that's more bizarre and spontaneous than anything a comedy writer could invent.

Cohen's skill at improvisation isn't just impressive, it's mind-boggling, and the best moments in the show come when he's building off some bit of information he's just stumbled on. For example, when Ali G is given a tour of the U.N., he spots a seat with the name "Jordan" on it. He quickly asks his tour guide, "Isn't it stupid letting one sportsman have his own seat no matter how powerful he is? It's ridiculous, letting one person have the same power as a whole country!"

Later, Borat, Cohen's TV reporter from Kazakhastan, manages to stay completely in character through an impossibly deadpan interview with a representative from a dating service.

Borat: "I will love her, we will be as one, I will give her television, remote control, a red dress ..."

Matchmaker: "So you're saying you have a good life, and back home you can provide for her a good life ..."

Borat: "But if she cheat on me ... (pause) Why you laugh?"

Matchmaker: "I think that's sweet! Keep going."

Borat: "But if she cheat on me, I will crush her."

Matchmaker: "You will crush her? Well, honey, that's not going to qualify you with our membership, if you're prepared to crush a woman. You can break up with her, and divorce her, but you can't ... No crushing."

Borat: "If possible, she must have plow experience."

Matchmaker: "You're not going to find an American woman with plow experience."

Borat: "Maybe just one year plow experience."

The amazing thing about "Da Ali G Show" is that each segment seems funnier than the last. Cohen goes from discussing his sex life at a society dinner in the South, to asking an etiquette coach how much to tip a prostitute, to demanding that "Boutros Boutros Boutros Boutros-Ghali" explain why Disneyland doesn't have a seat in the U.N. As juvenile as any of these antics might sound, they're both outrageously funny and fascinating to witness.

The most absurd moment of the show, though, comes when Bruno the fashion journalist somehow convinces P.R. guru Paul Wilmot to give deaf children a message about safe sex without using any words. The resulting frantic gesturing by Wilmot is, truly, beyond words.

If Cohen exploits negative stereotypes, he does so to positive effect. Somehow seeing his exaggerated characters interact with regular people reinforces the real difficulty of honest communication between cultures, and we wind up with sympathy for both sides. When we watch Ali G describing the plot of "Barely Legal III" to a former attorney general, we relate to Ali G's impulse to provoke, but we also sympathize with Thornburgh's eagerness to play along with someone he doesn't completely understand. We see ourselves in the provocateur and in his hapless victim.

This isn't just an accident. "Da Ali G Show," for all its rudeness and button-pushing, treats its guests with an impressive degree of compassion. Aside from a few cruel fat jokes and an inability to resist the urge to ruffle a priest's feathers, Cohen manages to stay on friendly terms with most of his guests, sensing when to push them and when to back off. Most guests genuinely appear to be having a good time, despite the fact that they're being duped.

There will be those who say that the purpose of these shows is to shock the viewer. Clearly, though, the goal of "Da Ali G Show" is not to shock, any more than Monty Python or Archie Bunker's "All in the Family" or "Seinfeld" had an explicit goal to shock. True comedy arises from the experience of looking at the truth about ourselves without fear.

Programs like "Real Time with Bill Maher" and "Da Ali G Show" reflect that HBO's freedom, as a paid "premium" channel, isn't just the freedom to say "fuck" or to show some hooker's bare ass on TV. It's the freedom to highlight the ways we miscommunicate, offend and condescend to each other, and the freedom to take the risk of showing the humor in anything and everything, regardless of what a few oversensitive viewers who stayed up past their bedtime may think about it.

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