The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore

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.

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.

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'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 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.