Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

As a moderate independent, I have views that some on the left would find conservative and some on the right liberal. I find faults in both parties. Having said that, I do enjoy some of these "satire" news shows. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver I find very well done. The Colbert Report, when it aired, was always quality television. I gave Full Frontal a shot due to the lack of females that have this type of platform to see a different take from the opposite sex. However, as a male who is all for equal rights for women, I find the "you can't ever criticize a woman" bias from Samantha Bee a bit aggravating after a while. There's a couple examples of this. The first is the episode about dating in the workplace. While I agree with the overall message that sexual harassment and assault in the workplace is wrong and inappropriate, it seemed to leak into "even asking out a fellow coworker on a date is wrong", which shrieks of hypocrisy seeing that Samantha Bee herself met her husband through the workplace. Yes, no means no and move on if you ask someone out and they say no, but it got a bit sketchy. The bigger, more annoying example is when she was discussing the debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. She shows a clip of Bernie raising up his arm and asking Hillary not to interrupt him. She uses it as an example to show how big of a "misogynist" Bernie Sanders is, when in reality it was a debate and anyone would do this if they were interrupted, no matter what gender they are. It just shows that Samantha Bee supports Hillary almost purely on gender alone, and that is another type of sexism in and of itself. There are parts of the show that I love, like how she shows how important mid-term and local elections are in the overall framework of the electoral process, and the videos they make I think are very well done, but some of the semi-extreme feminist propaganda gets a bit much at times. Again, I'm all for women having equal rights, but equal is not the same as special, and Full Frontal at times seems to forget that.

This woman is the latest disaster to come from the Melissa McCarthy/Amy Schumer school of "comedy": hostile, strident, but not at all funny. Hostility and stridency I can overlook in a comedian who is truly funny, but there's not a laugh in sight here. The attempts at political humor completely lack imagination or originality; Ms. Bee carefully toes the accepted liberal line and seems to lack the guts to voice any idea outside the predictable Hollywood political script. All of this is a damned shame, as a fresh witty voice would be SO welcome in this dismal election year, and I always root for female comedians to smash the "girls aren't funny" stereotype. Ms. Bee was given the perfect opportunity to succeed on both counts, but wholly fails to rise to the occasion. She's trying for edgy, but ends up merely annoying.

I'm not Republican, I'm not Democrat. I could care less about your political views but this show is so one sided. Why would they give her a platform when she's not even funny, clever, or engaging. Even in the promos she's telling what's supposed to be a funny joke and there are people laughing their heads off in the audience and I'm sitting on the couch wondering what I just missed. To top it all off, this is "critically acclaimed"and has won awards. Smh. I do not understand that for the life of me.

Those feeling bereft after Jon Stewart left The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert toned it down for The Late Show may find some solace in this (sadly only) weekly show from Samantha Bee.

Her filmed pieces are still the strongest (she was always my favourite Daily Show correspondent) but she turns in a fiery performance as host of the show too. She rivals Jon Stewart in ferocity against political stupidity, but she's less nuanced and jokey than Stewart was. As the title of her show suggests, she's full-on angry and there's venom in her jibes. This may turns some viewers off, but I applaud her bravery.

The show this reminded me of most was "Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell". I hope it sticks around for longer, it's a real breath of fresh air and great to see a woman in amongst the dude-dominated TV schedules.

This show is nothing more than trump bashery and stale unfunny comedy. You can only hear someone bash someone so much to the point of insanity. Only reason this is at a 2 is because she has some (but very few) fairly decent opinions and maybe ONE joke lands...every other episode. Can't believe critics gave this show a full 100% on rotten tomatoes.