The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore

This show has potential and Larry Wilmore is OK. I loved his segments on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart but for some reason it is not coming through in his own show. Maybe he is only great in small doses but I have been watching The Nightly Show since it started but it needs to start getting better fast or it could get pulled from the network because looking at these message boards there obviously isn't a lot of love for it.

Tonight's show is a good example (airing January 26 2015 since I have no idea when you will read this), with the topic being American snipers since the huge movie at the time is "American Sniper". The stuff off the top with Larry Wilmore was decent and the highlight of the show. He will get better as time goes on I assume. After that there was a character piece with Shenaz Treasure which was just painfully awful. It was five minutes of one joke (we get it, Bradley Cooper is hot) that she just wasn't delivering right. Not funny at all. I'm not looking forward to any more of her bits. Epic fail.

The panel discussion was OK and again I think they will feel it out over time. Larry wasn't pitch perfect tonight but he's obviously got a talent for heading up this type of panel and other episodes have been better. Part of the problem was tonight's panel, which didn't give him much funny to work with.

The three more serious guests were OK (they were a veterans group representative, a sniper, and the other guy I think was an Iraq War/middle east expert who was very "anti-Bush" in his opinions). None of them were particularly funny but they're obviously not there for that, they have different viewpoints on the week's serious topic and did a fine job presenting that.

Where the panel works or fails is with the fourth panelist who is always a comedian of some sort and they are supposed to bring the funny to the table and give Larry help with that part of the show. Too often (at least so far) this guest hasn't been up to snuff and the show has suffered because of it. Case in point tonight's guest, a Canadian lesbian (not that that matters) named Sabrina Jalees was in that seat and brought almost nothing to the table. I hate to have to say it but the two females on the show tonight were just bloody awful and by far the worst parts of the show, hopefully producers will not let them stop them from booking other females in the future who can actually deliver on the funny. Jaleese barely talked at all and when she did her jokes were awkward and completely unfunny, on top of that they had little to do with the panel's discussion or show's topic. Even her answer to the Keep it 100 question was forced, took way too long and was completely unfunny. The sniper and veterans representative were both honestly funnier in their comments than the comedian tonight, and also the Iraq expert came off a bit too hostile (particularly towards the veterans rep) and seemed sort of jerky for lack of a better word.

Keep it 100 is very hit or miss just like the panel, for the same reasons, but tonight's panel (aside from Jalees) did quite well with it. Wasn't thrilled with Wilmore's answer tonight as it seemed a bit of a pander (saying he'd serve his country any time) but he really didn't have anywhere else to go with it. I get that he doesn't see the question beforehand and sometimes this makes his answer even funnier but they might want to let him pick the questions or at least see them beforehand to come up with great answers regularly.

All in all I will keep watching this show, am still a big fan of Wilmore, and will cross my fingers that they sort this show out soon because I see huge potential and don't want to see it canceled. With such a big part of the show being the panel I hope they'll start booking funnier comedians more regularly. Bill Burr would be great as a semi regular guest!

I've been a loyal viewer of The Daily Show for many years and have really enjoyed all of Jon's correspondents, Larry Wilmore included. But he has big shoes to fill in replacing Colbert.

Colbert always complimented Jon well in that he could make light of many ridiculous topics, especially enjoyable after Daily Show episodes which tend to highlight injustice, partisan politics and other frustrating aspects of our nation. Important topics to discuss, but not necessarily to go to sleep on. Colbert would often lighten the mood by entertaining many topics creatively.

Larry, on the other hand, seems to only focus on the black struggle from his perspective as well as those of his black panel guests (and a couple of token white guests who appear as outsiders with little to contribute). The topic of racial divide is a heated one and not one I'm excited to go to sleep on every night.

For me to continue watching the show I'll need to see some topic diversity.

Random thoughts:

• More monologue, less panel - What's with the inverted map??

UPDATE: After watching the show for awhile now I can say that topic diversity didn't help. The show is boring, plain & simple. I've officially stopped watching it. Wilmore is not great on his own, he has little in his comedy toolbox.

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.

It had a rocky rollout, but I think The Nightly Show has pretty much figured out what works and what doesn't.

They largely ditched the "Keeping It 100" shtick; and when they do occasionally allude to it during panel discussion, it's done much more subtly/sensibly/intelligently.

And the produced pieces are very high quality; informative, smart, funny, eminently watchable. The only reason I give the show an '8' is because... well, that's high for a political presentation/talk show, in my book.

I continued watching it because Wilmore is obviously a theater nerd, and I dig that, and I had a hunch we'd see the show evolve; and it has.

Good work!

(& btw, this is an amended review. Below is the original review I posted two or three episodes into the original launch of the show:)

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Original title: "'Keeping It 100'" doesn't keep it 100"

Loved it when it first came on, had high hopes. I'm just starting to get the impression that it's turning out to be (hard to believe) no better than Realtime with Bill Maher. I've sort of gotten objective on the Maher show, and realize that he's a bit of a blowhard and too often tends not to do his job (as moderator) so as to truly maximize his assets.

Well, I'm starting to get the impression that Larry, bless his heart, isn't going to score much higher than Bill on these counts. He's a very funny guy, his opening monologue material rocks, and he delivers it with aplomb... fairly reminiscent of the late departed Mr. Colbert, IMHO. But 50%+ of the show is taken up with the panel. He picks great people, often sitting on opposite ends of sundry sociopolitical spectra... and then he well nigh squanders them. At least with Bill you sometimes get genuine fireworks of repartee. Here, that gets blunted/shortshrifted by Larry, with the icing on the cake being his "Keep it 100" capper that dumps rather insulting loaded questions/scenarios onto his hapless guests. Frankly, I'm more than a little surprised; after Colbert's writers set such a high bar, it's hard to believe this stuff squeaks through.

I give the show a six due to the fine production values, and Larry's wonderful, informative presentations. His guest panel robs away the rest.

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.