Larry Wilmore Keeps It 100-Plus

May 6, 2015 5:08 PM

We talked about The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (Comedy Central's time-slot replacement for The Colbert Report soon after it premiered, and the show has been busy working out a lot of the bugs we talked about -- in particular, taking the panel down from four participants to three and occasionally focusing an entire show on the panel without Wilmore's standard-issue monologue or wacky skits. Then Wilmore left the studio entirely, sitting down in a Baltimore diner with Crips and Bloods to discuss their truce during the protests, which one reviewer is calling TNS finding its voice.
posted by Etrigan (14 comments total)

That segment was outstanding, in many, many ways. One of the better things I've seen on TV, maybe ever.
posted by gimonca at 5:22 PM on May 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

That was remarkable. The comedians do consistently better job of getting to the truth than the reporters. Is wonderful and sad.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:46 PM on May 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

Sorry Real News, Fake News once again wins the round. Now that's an exclusive.
posted by chainlinkspiral at 6:21 PM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sorry Real News, Fake News once again wins the round. Now that's an exclusive.
posted by chainlinkspiral at 9:21 PM on May 6

Honest to goodness, every time I see something like Wilmore's segment, I can't help but shudder at how so many of our mainstream news organizations have failed us.
posted by magstheaxe at 7:27 PM on May 6, 2015 [7 favorites]

This is good. I like how this is an update on an existing FPP. I seriously appreciate these follow-ups.
posted by I-baLL at 8:10 PM on May 6, 2015

Good to hear it's improved. I will give it another shot - I stopped watching it early on after I saw the "keeping it 100" segment four nights in a row, which was dull as dishwater.
posted by modernnomad at 8:12 PM on May 6, 2015

I think it's been improving. Anytime Mike Yard is in a sketch or panel it gets about twice better. The panel segments really depend on the guests, but pairing them down to 3 guests and cutting the 'keep it 100' stuff has made it flow a lot better.
posted by Catblack at 9:44 PM on May 6, 2015

I'd love to see Larry's show do well, but that diner interview left me wanting. It wasn't clear to me what he was trying to do with the interview - he didn't dig in with any deep questions, the times that the interviewees said insightful things, he just let them drop, and on occasion he felt the need to turn this into a comedy bit with really weak humor which worked counter to the discussion at hand (a pig joke! call of duty white ops!) which was to emphasize respect for all people involved. Not impressed.
posted by milnak at 9:54 PM on May 6, 2015

I agree milnak, though I find the same thing happens often on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. It's definitely a conscious-effort "infotainment" thing they are trying to dial into, but I find it off-putting when a brilliant turn of phrase or insight is glossed over with a weak joke or change of subject. I did like the segment all in all, it was emphasizing a sort of loose informal friendliness, like I caught myself thinking "hey, that guy is making tea, gangsters are like us!" like it's some amazing observation [and feels like it was edited to elicit that response but I could just be super-white] , and I grew up in a crip neighborhood with a reverend a few houses down who helped people in any sort of gang find their way out, so I wasn't exactly sheltered with the "gang members are scary monsters!" mentality because I grew up with some "trainees" in middle school.
posted by aydeejones at 10:16 PM on May 6, 2015

I think it's been getting better, and since Baltimore has been really good. Wilmore himself said, "It's a work in progress." Nice to see a black host.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 12:03 AM on May 7, 2015

I gave up on the Nightly Show after that dreadful death penalty episode.
posted by Pendragon at 12:21 AM on May 7, 2015

The death penalty episode almost did it for us, too, but Mrs. Mogur and myself agreed to give the show one more week. And it slowly won us back, with shows like this one.
posted by Mogur at 4:26 AM on May 7, 2015

That was remarkable. The comedians do consistently better job of getting to the truth than the reporters. Is wonderful and sad.

This idea that comedy as "medium" has some kind of handicap or disadvantage in usefully reporting the news, relative to "normal news" reporting is incorrect. Comedy is inherently well suited to spinning news stories in ways that may play into or contest dominant narratives that shape how a particular story is told.

I won't even get into the long list of incredibly insightful Onion articles...
posted by patrickdbyers at 9:07 PM on May 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

The Nightly Show was great tonight, in my opinion. I loved this piece, and the whole show.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 10:25 PM on May 13, 2015