Show excels at finding female funny

The Show: Baroness von Sketch Show, Season 2, Episode 2 The Moment: Great expectations

A new mom sits among a circle of friends. “I just never expected it to feel so — what’s the word? — powerful,” she says.

Most friends nod, beaming. One laughs skeptically. “How could you not know?” she asks. “Have you never watched a Lifetime movie?

“Have you never read a Mother’s Day card about how there’s no love like mother’s love?” Skeptical continues. “Or, I don’t know, the Facebook status of every one of our friends who’s had a baby? ”

The other friends send her “stop talking” looks. She doesn’t: she mimes giving birth and mock-wails, “‘I’m overwhelmed by this new love.’ That’s in every movie with a birth scene. Literally.”

“Uh, should we open some presents?” a friend intervenes.

Skeptical swallows. “But wow, she’s the most adorable baby ever born,” she coos to New Mom. “Soooo cute.”

I love the Baronesses: writer/ performers Carolyn Taylor, Meredith MacNeill, Aurora Browne and Jennifer Whalen. Their sketches aren’t mean. They’re not about singling out people and mocking them. They’re about noticing: noticing foibles, uncomfortable silences, truths you’re not supposed to say out loud.

I don’t think there’s one blanket female voice in comedy. But these five excel in picking out moments in the female experience and seeing what’s funny about them. They make you laugh as only your girlfriends can. Season 2 of Baroness von Sketch Show premieres Tuesday at 9 p.m. on CBC. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.