Some people hoped the satirist’s series would be the defining show of our age. Instead, it was just another Ali G – and never managed to worry anyone truly important

I have an apology to make. Last month, before a single episode had even aired, I went and claimed that Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America? had “the potential to be nothing less than the defining television programme of our age”. And, now that the series is over, I would like to walk that statement back a little. Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America?, as if you needed to be told, was not the defining television programme of our age. Or any age.

Before we get to why, let me try to explain my weird breathlessness at the time. Although that line does read like the work of someone who really, really wants to be quoted on the back of a DVD box, I was so excited about Who Is America? when I first heard about it. Thanks to Baron Cohen’s initial announcement – a vaguely threatening video addressed to Donald Trump on Independence Day – I assumed that Who Is America? would be squarely targeted at the Trump administration.

In fact, I made an even bigger assumption: that the whole thing would be a Watergate-level undercover sting, where Trump and his associates would be lulled into admitting to a series of errors and crimes by a comedian playing the fool. I wanted it to be a parallel Mueller probe. I wanted it to make a tangible dent. Which, in retrospect, may have been a little too much to ask of a televised prank show.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dick Cheney and Sacha Baron Cohen in Who is America? Photograph: Showtime

Instead, Who Is America? was just Sacha Baron Cohen making another Sacha Baron Cohen programme. He interviewed famous people with no greater intent than to make them look silly, just like he did with Ali G, Borat and Bruno. He landed a few punches along the way, but only sporadically and not often enough to worry anyone truly important.

When they landed, though, they landed hard. The smartest new character here was Erran Morad, a former Mossad agent so palpably alpha that his victims desperately wanted to win his approval any way they could. No one was more horrifying than the Georgia lawmaker Jason Spencer. In the space of a few minutes, Morad persuaded Spencer to spout racist gibberish and run around backwards with his bum hanging out. Spencer, understandably, has since resigned.

But the bulk of Baron Cohen’s other targets didn’t fall so hard. Some were too intelligent, such as the veteran broadcaster Ted Koppel, who politely but exasperatedly terminated the interview after a few minutes. Others, such as the Bachelor contestant Corinne Olympios – tricked into appearing in an Adopt a Child Soldier campaign – simply reinforced the notion that celebrities will board any cause for exposure; something that Brass Eye definitively managed to establish 20 years ago.

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Some targets had done nothing to warrant being so publicly embarrassed, such as the poor gallery owner from the first episode who was coaxed into pulling out her pubic hair. And as for the others – the rightwing mouthpieces who formed the majority of targets – have willingly said or done far worse things on the news than they did for Baron Cohen. For example, the Trump-supporting commentator Corey Lewandowski made a sad trombone noise when asked about disabled children in cages on Fox News, but merely rolled back into a series of relatively untouchable talking points when pressed on Who Is America?

This brand of comedy may not be the best tool for dismantling idiots like these. Satire, especially the broad, formless satire of Who Is America? can only get you so far. The world is not full of Jason Spencers and, if there’s ever a second series, Baron Cohen needs to show his teeth much more than this if he wants to make a greater point about the world.

Who Is America? was fine. Stripped down to YouTube segments, it was often pretty good. But it isn’t the defining television programme of our age. I got that wrong and I’m sorry. But I’m right about everything else, especially anything I have ever said about Lost.