It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This was set up as a parody of Project Greenlight from the beginning. I thought that the concept was brilliant when it finally came out. For the longest time I heard Denis Leary talk about how he had used the idea of Project Greenlight and then decided to improve on the idea by having six chances instead of one. He said this on the daily show, the tonight show, the late show etc. However a while later after the show had finished its original run. they were going to have a running of all episodes on a sunday night. He was on Conan to push the marathon. And he came out saying that he was watching project greenlight, "Talk about people with their heads up their a**es." (You had to see the episode to know where that came from.) And decided to take them down a peg or two by parodizing it. Hence Contest Searchlight was born.

this is one great show. 4 episodes felt like a lifetime of funny. you would think a show would have a few minor set backs but otherwise flow fine in its creation process. but everything that could go wrong did. SPOILERS AHEAD....the fire, the electricution, the half deaf audience, the lead actor getting hit by a car, another actor beaten up by a bike messanger. thats just to name a few of the many things that went wrong. but this show definatly puts the fun in utter dysfunction. whos up for a second season, i know i am.