Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hart To Heart,’ Season 3 On Peacock, Kevin Hart’s Tipsy Talk Show Remains Off Balance

Kevin Hart’s first stand-up special for Peacock isn’t the first thing he’s starred in or hosted for NBCUniversal’s streaming platform. But Hart’s Reality Check should bring more eyeballs Peacock’s way, which, in turn, likely will lead more viewers to discover his celebrity one-on-one talk show, Hart to Heart, which begins its third season the same day his special drops. Sounds like as good a time as any to give his talk show a reality check, too.

HART TO HEART: SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We launch right into the intro, with Hart letting us know our guest for this first episode of the season is Sofia Vergara.

The Gist: One guest star sits for an interview with Hart per episode on a stage set to look like a winery. The first two episodes to drop this season are Vergara and John Cena.

When Vergara walks onto the set, Hart greets her with gibberish in a Spanish accent. She immediately wonders why she’s here, and if it’s only because she once co-starred in a movie with him (Soul Plane). Which allows Hart to explain the premise of his talk show: “I interview my friends, I interview my business partners, people that I have relationships with, more importantly, people that I want the world to understand that are great people, great minds.”

Vergara wonders some more: “Even people that you don’t like, you interview?”

Hart replies: “I interviewed a person, but not on this show, that I didn’t like before. But here, this is all like great rapport, great relationships and a great feel, and back and forth. That’s what this place is. That’s why it’s called Hart to Heart.”

A sommelier appears, pouring a glass of white wine for Vergara and a glass of red for Hart. Hart immediately questions why Vergara got her wine poured first, and says he’ll fix that in post-production in the edit.

When they do get to chatting more properly, Hart asks Vergara if Soul Plane opened any doors for her in Hollywood, as it did for him, despite the film’s lackluster box-office. She divulges that she survived her early years in Hollywood thanks to holding deals with ABC, that the network kept booking her on different pilots and projects until they found a hit in Modern Family.

Vergara also talks about growing up in Colombia, arriving in Miami, and only a little bit about her early work with Univision, where she said she wanted to create something for her son’s future. She started by selling calendars of herself, and eventually built her own brand and clothing line for Kmart. “I wish I was like some kind of Martha Stewart,” she says.

We also learn Vergara will produce and star in an upcoming Netflix series, Griselda, in which she’ll stretch her acting range to play a real-life drug dealer. There’s some discussion between Hart and Vergara about acting techniques, which prompts Hart to pretend he can cry on cue. Alas, he cannot. But he does reveal how he did cry in Parenthood, thanks to his scene partner, Alfre Woodard. Vergara, for her part, revealed that she used to imagine her son was in a horrible accident any time her scene called for her to cry.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? While Netflix offers something similar in My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman, this feels more like a celebrity podcast with a dash of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis.

Our Take: Three seasons in, you’d expect a talk show to have found its footing.

This show, however, seems to exist solely to let Hart hang out with other celebrities, drink wine, and shoot the proverbial shit with them. Which can be enough for some viewers.

With Vergara, Hart had specific topics in mind (her getting Modern Family, her building a business), and in between, he mostly looked for joke opportunities. There was never much follow-up at all, even when Vergara said things begging for more questions. In the middle of casually mentioning how her brother was killed in Colombia in the mid-1990s, Vergara even says that her husband Joe (Manganiello) will have to stop her and say, WTF?!? And yet, Hart never finds that moment himself to stop Vergara and reflect on any bombshells. Nor even when she reveals something weird such as Manganiello serving as a “Dungeons & Dragons” Dungeon Master.

The most revelatory part of the episode, in fact, came when Vergara turned the tables on Hart, asking him whether he can still have fun as a stand-up comedian when the climate has become more sensitive.

To which Hart gave a more thoughtful answer than he perhaps ever had, previously coming off more defensive against critics of his old jokes. To Vergara, he said: “I think the idea of being a little more present and understanding of people’s feelings was needed and necessary. I think for a long time we’ve overlooked how hurtful some words or some actions can be, and I think what we’ve been through, it’s definitely — it’s shined a light on a lot of things. I can see how someone would be hurt. I can see how somebody could be f-ed up from that. You know what? I don’t mind making those changes. Moving forward I will be more mindful, I will be more aware.”

Sex and Skin: None. The profanity does flow a bit more as they drink more wine, though, for what that’s worth.

Parting Shot: As the credits roll, Vergara asks Hart if she can touch his Corvette in the parking lot.

Sleeper Star: None.

Our Call: With five commercial breaks, this felt a lot longer than an hour. Which isn’t what a light, breezy, wine-soaked conversation should feel like. Future episodes this season will feature Bill Maher, Dr. Dre, Dwayne Johnson, Issa Rae, J. Cole, Mark Cuban, Will Ferrell and Will Smith. Perhaps you might want to stream one or more of those, but you might be better off just saying SKIP IT.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.