film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

Thumbnail image for nightlyshowheader.jpg

An Open Letter To Larry Wilmore: Please Fix Your Show

By Emily Cutler | Videos | May 7, 2015 |

By Emily Cutler | Videos | May 7, 2015 |


Dear Larry Wilmore,

Please drop your roundtable discussions. They’re ruining your show. And you have all the bones for a really good show. I know you wanted to avoid being a Daily Show copycat. Especially since that British bastard swooped in and made a more vulgar, almost- as- good- as- the- original copycat, but seriously change the format.

Did you watch your show last night? Because I did. Or I should say, I watched the first 15 minutes and then decided to turn it off. Let’s compare the first half with the back half, shall we? (Also whoever is cutting your segments for the website is doing a terrible job. There’s no reason this should be in three clips.)

That’s all good stuff. Really, really good stuff. Remember how much I admired Jon Stewart’s ability to drive-by destroy all of the bullshit in a story? You’re doing that, and you’re doing it well. You just hit Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, her inability to secure her own website, the Hewlett- Packard layoffs, the sexism against Hillary Clinton, and a dick joke. That’s a lot for 8 minutes.

And the back half?

Meeeeeh.

That’s a “meh” but slightly more aggravated. Because now I feel like you’re wasting my time. I’m sure that all three of these women are very intelligent, and have a lot of really great things to say. But I want them to tell me those things after they’ve had all of the discussions to hash out the details. What you’re showing us is the origin story of every great piece that The Daily Show, etc. has put out. This is where you start with an idea, then research it, develop the story, confirm the facts, add some humor, and then present it to the audience. Kind of like what you did with the front half. If I wanted to know what Susie Essman thinks about sexism, I could read her book or watch her stand up. If Holly Walker has something really important to say about Hillary running for president, I’d hope you’d give her a segment on the show she writes for. And if I wanted to see Nicolle Wallace have a discussion about all of the events of the day, I could watch her do that on her own effing show about women discussing the events of the day.

You might be running a “fake” news show, but it is still a news show. Give us the news. If I have to watch Joel McHale give us his take on normalizing relations with Cuba, I’m out.

Sincerely,

A Hopefully Still Loyal Watcher

P.S. Susie Essman, I don’t even know where to begin to tell you what was wrong with that transgender joke. Knock it the fuck off.