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- Comedy Central
- Jan 19, 2015
- Comedy Central
- Jan 19, 2015
- Comedy Central
- Jan 19, 2015
- Comedy Central
- Jan 19, 2015
Where to Watch
Season Episodes
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
69
67% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
33% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
69
67% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
33% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Wilmore proves a smart and capable host in his auspicious debut.
It's still a little clunky, particularly in terms of editing, and it feels as if all involved are figuring out the right ratio of jokes to information. Yet there's a lot to recommend here.
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 200 User Ratings
2.7
22% Positive
43 Ratings
43 Ratings
8% Mixed
16 Ratings
16 Ratings
71% Negative
141 Ratings
141 Ratings
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 200 User Ratings
2.7
22% Positive
43 Ratings
43 Ratings
8% Mixed
16 Ratings
16 Ratings
71% Negative
141 Ratings
141 Ratings
August 20, 2016
The only sanity on TV I have found in this disturbingly chaotic election year has been The Tonightly Show. Larry Wilmore's savvy satire of Donald Trump offset the nausea I feel every time Trump's face and obnoxious words appear. What a loss to the American public is the cancellation of this show! To this white woman Larry Wilmore was the epitome of an educated, moral, empathetic male of any color. I wish someone in the TV world would provide him with another venue. I score his show a 10.
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SEASON 1
Maybe it's this website, but I'm surprised by the negative reviews. I love the Nightly Show, I like Larry more than Steve Colbert. To me Larry is more like Jon Stewart, who I miss a lot. I like that there is a black voice in this time slot. I will take Larry over Trevor, I like Trevor, but not as much as Larry. I like how the show opens with a funny comments and "pointing outs", but then he finishes with a harsh remark to bring the reality. If you see this Larry, great show!
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SEASON 1
He’s got some work to do in the pacing of the table discussions, but Wilmore’s sensibility is immediately relatable: common sense enlivened by a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo.
An unsteady but very likable debut. ... That's about as good as anyone can expect from a talk show that debuted on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and that's going to spend the next few weeks or months perfecting itself while shouldering the burden of immense and mostly unreasonable expectations.
As for first impressions, I liked it. ... Slight nitpicking should not obscure the fact that overall Wilmore was funny; his show was smart and thoughtful, has a bright future and seems an excellent fit with Stewart and the Comedy Central brand.
The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore got off to a promising if uneven start Monday on Comedy Central, with Wilmore's opening segment much stronger than a chaotic panel discussion that followed.
He started off with a strong opening monologue.... But the heart of the show is supposed to be a panel discussion between Wilmore, one of his contributors and a guest panel that Monday night featured U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, hip-hop artist Talib Kweli and comedian Bill Burr, but eight minutes wasn't enough time to get any sort of meaningful (or funny, for that matter) dialogue going.... What did work was the "Keep It 100" segment, in which Wilmore posed a tough question tailored to each of his panelists, which they had to answer as truthfully as possible.
I love Larry Wilmore! I'm white and I appreciate the fresh perspective that Larry and his guests and crew bring to this show; especially Mike Yard, who is hilarious. I don't understand all of the racist remarks, but I guess some folks just can't handle a show that has a mostly black cast. They're probably the same folks who want to make the White House "white" again.
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SEASON 1
I think this show will improve. I think where it lacks is a balance between form and function. I think the format is well done and I get what they're doing, but I'll bet they're under a huge microscope from the network and the things they've set up aren't playing out as well as they could. Perhaps the network is trying to keep the show playing nicely and safely.
I think the "Keep it 100 segment has HUGE potential for really getting great bites from the panelists, but the questions are often a little too soft or indirect. Many times, I'll turn to my wife with an alternate way of saying the same thing but in a way that wouldn't have a panelist trying to negotiate their answers. Alternatively, the panelists should be prepped ahead of time - maybe not with the "Keep it 100" questions, but with HOW the segment works - because it often starts off awkwardly and the show loses time by having to explain how the segment works to the panelists.
And that's the other glaring issue: the show always seems like it's trying to stay to time. This is something Larry can work on, but perhaps having one less panelist would aid in the flow a bit. 5 people trying to fill a 4.5 minute break with intelligent discussion is a tall drink of water. There's been a show or two where a panelist says little to nothing. Larry does a good job trying to pose questions to each panelist but sometimes another panelist wants to finish a thought from earlier or wants to talk about how that question relates to them and it falls apart. Larry does an okay job trying to mitigate this but again, the panelists could be coached by their publicists or even the producers of the show.
All in all, I love seeing Larry on TV and I think he keeps it 100 more than any panelist has on the show. I would just love to see the "Keep it 100" segment be more about people ACTUALLY keeping it 100, and less of a popular-answer competition. A lot of that segment seems to be majority rules. I wouldn't hate for Larry to be the deciding vote on whether or not someone kept it 100 rather than the audience.
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SEASON 1
The show is not great, the show is not awful. After a few weeks in I've come to the conclusion that this is the way it will always be. Wilmore was a much better guest on The Daily Show than a host of this. There are probably more misses than hits and Wilmore seems a tad awkward at times. The first 10-15 minutes of Daily Show like presentation is far better than the panel discussions, which are usually neither intriguing or funny. The 10 ratings are a bit puzzling, the show is simply not even close to being THAT good, but the zero ratings are even more puzzling and always seem to be followed by some commentary lamenting the loss of Steven Colbert. That is a ridiculous standard to hold The Nightly Show to, especially after only one to two weeks in. The show is destined to be mediocre if it doesn't ditch the panels and the lame "Keep it 100" schtick.
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SEASON 1
While it showed promise early on, it never built on what potential it had, in fact, the show seemed to have peaked within the first month as it has made no decent improvements since then. All of the guests agree with each other on almost everything. There's no conflict here. The show wants to start conversations about race, but how can those conversations start when the audience only sees one side from five different people
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SEASON 1
I watch comedy central all the time, it's my go to channel, and was a huge fan of The Daily Show and Colbert. Because of this, I really wanted to like this show. Unfortunately, I've found the show is less about humor and more about pushing a political agenda. It seems that Wilmore makes everything about racism or sexism, even when it's nowhere to be found. Now, it is important to note that over the past couple of years the two Comedy Central news shows have changed substantially, but I've found that Trevor Noah has been doing a fantastic job with the Daily Show. I could see how a show like this would be enjoyable if you are in line with the political views expressed, but even then it wouldn't be a comedy show, it would just be someone snidely telling you things you already believe. I dislike how an ongoing theme of the show is that someone doesn't have the right to talk about certain issues because they are not in a protected class (ie. women's issues if you aren't a woman or police violence if you aren't black). The show seems to lack the nuance of a political show and the humor of a comedy show. I guess it's a bad sign when they have Al Shapton on the show and out of the four person panel he seemed to be the most willing to discuss nuanced issues without resorting to the lazy "it's because of racism" answer. If you are familiar with Francesca Ramsey on Youtube, the show is very similar to her videos (which explains why she joined the writing staff of the show a couple months ago).
The other thing that irks me is the "keep it 100" segment. For those who are unfamiliar, the premise is that an online follower will write in a question (usually some kind of "would you rather..." question) and Wilmore answers it (originally it was questions Wilmore asked his guests). The goal, of course, is to answer the question with a totally blunt and honest answer. Often the questions are either inane or set up to get Wilmore to talk about how much he hates Trump. Often he doesn't even answer them honestly, he just says something the crowd wants to hear. One in particular was something along the lines of "if you were stranded on a desert isle like in the film, Castaway, and someone comes to bring you back to the US, but he tells you Trump has won the presidency, would you stay on the island or go back to the US with him?" Wilmore's answer was that he would stay on the island, which was met with applause and the writers awarding him with "100" stickers (meaning they believed he had "kept in 100"). Maybe I'm approaching this incorrectly, but I highly doubt that an entertainer (likely without remarkable survival skills) would prefer to stay stranded on a desert island than return to the US with Trump as president. It seems to me that this answer is the epitome of what would warrant "weak tea" (an indication that one had not "kept it 100").
In summation, it's possible that I'd like this show better if my beliefs were closer to those of Wilmore and his writers (I'm not radical, I'm pretty much a centrist on most issues), but I feel that a comedy show shouldn't be so aggressive in pushing a political agenda even if it is political satire.
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SEASON 1
