The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore

After watching the second Monday show (26 January) wherein the movie "American Sniper" was discussed, I doubt that this show will or should survive. On his panel of commenters was a man who claimed to have served an aggregate five tours of duty to Afghanistan and Iraq, acting as a sniper. He claimed to have killed nine people in one day, and too many during his tours to count, and felt nothing about the people he had killed. The response from the audience was applause. It was as chilling a moment as I have felt in my life--celebrating a person who demonstrates sociopathy after being sent to participate in the invasion of a country whose people had done nothing to us.

Tasteless and vile.

And very not funny.

I really liked Larry Wilmore's segments on the Daily Show and was looking forward to seeing him with his own show. All in all the show's not bad, but it's not nearly as good as I'd hoped it would be.

In particular, I'm disappointed with the recent spate of "Nightly" reports by Grace Para - they're silly, not at all funny, and pretty much a waste of time. She's an attractive woman and she can be funny - but these segments are simply an annoying distraction from the show itself. Many of the other repeating segments fall into this same category.

What I like best about the show is the roundtable discussion - many of these are thoughtful and they cover some interesting and timely topics. I wish there was more of this and less of the silly segments.

I loved Larry Wilmore on the Daily Show, so I gave him a full week's chance on his own ... but it's not working. The problem, I think, is that Larry isn't a great solo act. On the Daily Show, as the "Senior Black Corespondent," he was bouncing off of Stewart. Maybe that's why they decided to do these panel discussions for a good majority of the show, but I've never found it interesting to watch a group of strangers (or near strangers) chat about a subject.

I don't mind that the show is focused on black issues and concerns, and in fact I was ready to find that spin refreshing. His panels are somewhat racially diverse, so I don't feel left out as a white woman ... I'm afraid I just don't think the format is working, and I'm not convinced that Larry has the right force of personality to make this show work.

Larry Wilmore takes over the spot behind The Daily Show after Stephen Colbert leaves for his CBS late night talk show. Eight months after the debut, Jon Stewart leaves The Daily Show and replaced by Trevor Noah. The show is canceled before two complete seasons.

It's surprising that his show got Unblackening before the White House. It's not surprising that the show got canceled eventually. It started off badly. Honestly, I stopped watching after two episodes. I reconnected later on and appreciated its point of view. The Colbert Report is a tough show to replace. The Nightly Show is never going to measure up. I do like this more than Trevor Noah. Wilmore is not a natural performer and his monologue is not the best. His most notable performance may be calling the President n-word. It's the show's black-centric take that gives it its unique flavor.

I tried to watch "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" the other night and I couldn't get through it. The comedy was flat, the presentation lame, and the weird cutaways with the captioned still shots of Larry Wilmore were horribly unfunny.

The other "effect" I found annoying was that the talking head shot during the dialog would switch from full screen to a shot of the host on a monitor. Very distracting. I have no idea what that was supposed to accomplish, but it failed miserably.

Comedy Central raised the bar with informative, energetic shows like Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. Once viewers have tasted filet mignon they certainly don't want to settle for canned corned beef hash.