Full Frontal With Samantha Bee is the next victim of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger
Samantha Bee's political comedy series joins fellow TBS originals Chad and The Last O.G. in the WB/Discovery graveyard
Aux News Full Frontal
Another one bites the dust–and TBS is really starting to look like a barren wasteland–with the cancellation of Full Frontal With Samantha Bee. The late-night political talk show seems to be the latest victim in the ongoing casualties of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger earlier this year.
“As we continue to shape our new programming strategy, we’ve made some difficult, business-based decisions,” TBS said in a statement (per Variety). “We are proud to have been the home to Full Frontal With Samantha Bee and thank Sam, and the rest of the Emmy-nominated team for their groundbreaking work. We celebrate this extraordinarily talented cast and crew and look forward to exploring new opportunities to work with them in the future.”
The show made its own statement on the cancellation on its Twitter page, writing, “After 7 seasons, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee will not be returning to TBS this fall. We’re so thankful for our loyal audience, our amazing team, and that we got to annoy the right people every week—that there wasn’t wrestling or baseball or a very special episode of Big Bang.” The statement continued, “To our loyal fans–we love you, you’re very special. Go home, and go home in peace.”
In a follow up tweet, it joked, “Full Frontal is leaving TBS to go spend more time with her family.”
Shortly following the merger, TBS and TNT halted all development on new scripted shows. Since then, existing programs have been dropping like flies, including The Last O.G. and Chad (the latter got the ax the same day of its intended second season premiere). As such, the impending doom of Full Frontal seemed inevitable.
Still, it’s a tough loss for late night, as Bee was one of the most prominent female voices in the genre–and with more than 200 episodes, one of the longest-tenured. From a political standpoint, she brought a unique and necessary perspective, particularly in her vocal support of reproductive justice. At a time when those particular rights are in greater jeopardy than ever, it’s disappointing that Full Frontal will no longer be part of the conversation.
192 Comments
This is a legit surprise, given that the show isn’t expensive and all.
Pretty sure John Oliver is safe only because he’s on HBO proper (which Zaslav doesn’t seem to want to purge like the basic cable channels).
Pretty sure John Oliver is safe only because he’s on HBO properLast Week Tonight with John Oliver is the actual successor to The Daily Show with John Stewart, and is a massive hit for HBO to boot. It’s not going anywhere.
Zaslav has shown that he doesn’t care about whether a show is genuinely successful or not. Most of the scripted programming TBS and TNT have made the past few years has been well received and/or successful, but they’re getting canned anyway. The Cube was a pretty decent hit for TBS but Season 2 is MIA.
If John Oliver was on TBS or TNT instead of HBO, he’d likely be on the chopping block too.
No he wouldn’t… John’s got the stuff
But what’s the status of Gleaming The Cube 2?
Gleaming the Cube 2- starring Zantar
Christians? Later, dude.
Yep. Zaslav has to make room for 90 Day Extreme Trout Catcher or whatever other piece of trash he has lined up, after all.
I think Trevor Noah’s actually a really worthy successor to Jon (no h) Stewart.
It’s a different type of show than TDS. And Trevor does wonderfully over at TDS.
Last Week Tonight wont go anywhere because its actually successful and actually has viewers…..Samantha Bee is more than likely getting cancelled because its been garbage with no value that has done nothing but pander to the woke imbeciles for more than a few years now…..There is a difference between actually being valuable and informative and just bending the knee to imbecile woke trash, who want free college but give all their real money to grifters in exchange for fake internet monopoly money….I would 1000% bet every actual dollar I have the NFT of the falling man that was pulled from Gamestop’s NFT marketplace, was made by one of these same brain dead zoomers.
both shows were filmed in the same studio. HBO should embrace Sam and give her a show.
I expect this to get picked up by Paramount quickly.
Or MS-NBC. I’m not so sure about CBS anymore.
RuPaul is, and that’s enough for me.
I bet it’ll end up on Paramount Plus, so we can all say “oh that’s right, Paramount Plus exists.”
Joke all you want, I caught a preview of the new Beavis & Butthead episodes and I’m thrilled to have access to Paramount+. (Do the Universe was pretty great. Especially the zero-g vomiting.)
Paramount Plus is doing just fine with Star Trek.
My number 3 most watched streaming service (ahead of Netflix and Amazon)
Paramount+ is basically all Star Trek all the time so its not that bad.Now if she went to Peacock, then we’d be like “Oh yeah Peacock is a thing”
I am sure about CBS. I am sure they want middle of the road comedy and authoritarian porn.
Peacock. And she can run back to back with Amber Ruffin.
Channels are still a thing?
Right?
Where else can you watch Hallmark Christmas movies?
As long as clips from the shows go viral.
When that “channels” content is available through streaming, very much so.
Yes, they’re called streaming services now.
Cable is still a thing, I know because my wife refuses to let me get rid of it.
Wait a minute, didn’t you name your child “Cable”?
Dammit, is Nilus Scott Summers?Get out of here, Cyclops! Nobody wants you!
good, i thought she was an idiot
Only now do I realize there isn’t a downvote button here.I will miss this show. Thought the writing was consistently sharp and, as the article states, she brought a different perspective
And now you’ve proven yourself to be one. Thanks for removing all doubt for us.
Kind of harsh. I gave it a shot once it was the episode before the 2016 election. After what happened I didn’t feel like watching it again.
You seem pretty smart yourself. Tell me more!
All the smartest people write their comments like e.e. cummings.
this is true
And the Saturday Night Live band!Musical guest: A Tribe Called Quest!And your host: Matt Frewer!(That last one clearly delineates this as a joke. Unfortunately. I love him.)
You’re definitely not smart
Her show was the lowest form of comedy and painfully unfunny.
In two years time, TBS will be just sitcom repeats and AEW. Basic cable is dying very quickly.
Didn’t TBS start out showing sitcom reruns and Atlanta Braves baseball and that was it?
I thought it was just 24 hour airings of The Beast Master.
No, you’re thinking of TNT.When TBS started out, it was basically just back-to-back episodes of Gilligan’s Island and The Flintstones, punctuated by Atlanta Braves games whenever they played.
and wrestling. We will see if current Wrestling is part of the plan or if they cut that as well.
“Didn’t TBS start out showing sitcom reruns and Atlanta Braves baseball and that was it?”The Beastmaster takes exception to this.
And, as SB mentioned, wrasslin’.
Basically this and World Championship Wrestling, with the odd original program mixed in every so often (i.e. Captain Planet).
Basically. Turner bought the station that would become TBS (they were showing old stuff and the news) and all he added was old movies, old Japanese shows like Speed Racer, and Atlanta sports. It was 10 years before they did any sort of original programming. A lot of the Turner networks started out as (or their programming was dictated by) “We bought all this old stuff the networks discarded, now can we turn a profit?” Same way that Cartoon Network started because they bought Hanna-Barbera and decided that instead of letting them collect dust why not just run create an entire channel to run your 20 year old Flintstones/Jetsons/etc cartoons on loop?
I’m a little surprised how fast it has actually died, tbh. I thought it would be like radio and just kind of soldier on as a pared-down, less-interesting version of its former self for people to just use as background noise, but it seems to be dying out entirely.
Ted should demand that they remove his name from the channel.
Europe has a channel called MTV. Apparently, it stands for “Music Television” and they just play videos on it 24 hours a day with no commercials.
No we don’t, unfortunately.
And why don’t the make the whole plane out of the black box!?! BaZiNgA!!!
You mean it wasn’t already?
I’d be cool with half that.
Betting AEW will leave as soon as the contract ends. MLB too.
Umm, TBS has always been sitcom repeats.
AMC meanwhile is literally the living dead.
And the NBA and NASCAR.
Soon she’ll be managing a Taco Bell with Michelle Wolf.
Michelle’s latest Netflix special is one of the best comedy specials I’ve seen/heard. And I started my comedy fandom with Richard Pryor on vinyl. For a few minutes, I was wondering what his obsession with cats was. But then I got the context clues.
I suppose my original comment was a bit feckless.
More charmless than anything else.
Oh, you started with Richard Pryor, on vinyl no less! We should all bow down to you because you are old and have been around longer. All hail”qwedswa”
Dammmmn!
Michelle can go strident, but she’s a seasoned standup. She has a sense from travelling the nation’s ‘chuckle huts’ of when to push that stridency and when to step back and deflate her own aura with a self-deprecating punchline.Ironically, in vehicles other than the mother ship ‘Full Frontal’ Samantha seemed to possess that awareness as well. . . . I don’t know how much creative input she had as EP on The Detour starring her hubby, but a number of bits on that show satirized performative wokeness pretty brutally. Who knows, maybe she had no input and that whole narrative on that show was the creatives for that show taking swipes at their own EP.
Both of em, managing the same Taco Bell? Oh shit, now you’re *never* gonna get off the graveyard shift.
Hang in their, bro, you’ll get that promotion to manager soon!
I love Taco Bell, and even if they got rid of The Mexican Pizza (again).
It’s exceedingly important in the times we live in for talk show hosts to be capable of changing minds rather than reaffirming the beliefs of their audience. Bee may have been terrible at this, but so are they all. Just another reminder of the dire state of the genre.
No they isn’t. The Right doesn’t listen to shit.
Sure, but how many people out there really want their beliefs challenged? That’s a pretty small audience.I mean, I don’t mind learning that something I thought was true really isn’t true. But after working hard all day, most people just want to relax and not have to think much anymore.
Getting mad at things doesn’t strike me as a very relaxing activity.
I agree. Oddly enough though, that’s the exact reason so many people watch Fox News and scroll through their Facebook feed all night. The algorithms say that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to engagement.
No arguments there. It’s why I wish people like Sam Bee provided something a bit more heady. People will eat what they’re offered.
How about getting mad at things in a headache-inducing jacket?
MAGAs want those feelings out of them, and yelling’s about all they got.
“Sure, but how many people out there really want their beliefs challenged?”Agreed, and that’s why this whole thing was kind of doomed from the start. It was never going to be about challenging Your Own beliefs, because nobody wants that. So instead its about making fun of the other side’s beliefs, which while in some cases is much more justified than others to be diplomatic, doesn’t actually DO anything. It ends up being really mastrubatory
This is very true. I’m a big fan of Alton Brown/Good Eats – he recently posted on Facebook about an upcoming appearance on Stephen Colbert (a pretty big deal for a TV chef). I saw a lot of comments from Alton’s fans that were along the lines of “congrats, but I won’t watch – he’s too liberal.”
I was gonna say, your average Fox News viewer was NOT watching Sam Bee LOL especially after the pearl-clutching horror of calling Ivanka a feckless cunt.
Hey, if her invertebrate husband and lecherous old man can’t stand up for her honor, I’m not going to do it.
I won’t claim I caught more than a handful of episodes, but from what little I saw she fell into the trap of thinking her show needed to be the Deliverer of Truth rather than, first and foremost, entertaining. The same problem that pretty much ruined most of late night during the Trump era (including Colbert). I was so burned out on the “I’m going to stop telling jokes and be serious right now because this is just too important” mentality, and she wallowed in it. As if there aren’t dozens of political commentary shows staffed with and written by people who have been covering those topics professionally for decades.
Nobody should be enabled to feel that watching a comedy show fulfills their civic duty.
“Nobody should be enabled to feel that watching a comedy show fulfills their civic duty.”See, now that makes way more sense than your original comment. It’s basically orthogonal to “it’s exceedingly important for talk show hosts to blah blah”, and I agree with it.
Well, it’s a different point, so that explains that.
her interviews were funny. i liked the masha gessen ones.
could not agree more. John Oliver is also guilty of this. He makes me laugh but also bums me out *right* before bedtime to the point that I have to watch it on Tuesdays around dinner time, and also question (1) why I do that to myself at all, and (2) why he wants to live somewhere with so many problems (and I don’t mean that in a GQP “if you don’t like it why don’t you go back to England limey??” sort of way). And Colbert…Jesus dude, can you NOT dwell on politics constantly?? The t***p administration was an abomination and Cult 45 and the GQP are horror shows but could we all agree to have a “t***p-free day” once a week? It’s why I voted against him in 2020 LOL.Bee, Oliver, and Colbert all cut their teeth with Jon Stewart and I suppose decided he was too soft for their taste and have since decided to wallow in seriousness way too much IMO.BTW I stopped watching Bee a few years ago because she was just too screechy for my taste (around the time I stopped watching Maher for being too much of an unapologetically racist dickbag). When they moved her to a different night I figured the end was nigh.
“Wallowed.”
How long can we make fun of people without prosecuting? Is ridicule enough for everyone?
Who do you want prosecuted who hasn’t been? 880 people have been charged so far for the Jan 6 riot and close to half have pleaded guilty. Trump’s primary sin was not taking steps to calm the situation, which while a really shitty look isn’t a crime best I can tell. So all these shows can mock away, but after six years of it I don’t need to watch another tiresome comedy bit about someone who’s been out of office for a year and a half.
I’d like the people the organized the coup attempt prosecuted. That seems logical. To me. Maybe I am out of line.
Right, but isn’t that who we’re talking about? I expect the organizers, such as they were, were part of the mob.
It’s just going to have to be.
Sam Bee is super talented, but I think being weekly kind of hurt her show. Since she mostly talked about topical/political news items, by the time her show came out they were usually items that Seth Meyers and Colbert had already been making fun of for days. John Oliver found a way around this by diving into topics that no one else was touching, and when Sam did something similar her show was usually way better.
“for talk show hosts”TALK SHOW HOSTSLook, I love the rabble rousing these folks can do but ffs, changing minds has never, ever, eeeever been the priority or job description.
I’d argue that neither has been trying to make your comedy program a Meet the Press roundtable. But that’s what we got.
How can you ever expect to be taken seriously with a reply like this? Are you a child?
Offer me a serious conversation. “Late night talk show hosts are important political figures who can move opinions” is not serious. It is deserving of a Liz Lemon eyeroll.
I said “talk show hosts.” In no way did I specify late night. Part of the tragedy of what I’m referring to is that late-night is really all we have anymore. The exceptions, like Tucker Carlson, are absolutely important political figures, and it’s ludicrous to suggest otherwise.That said, I’m talking to a person whose brain goes to Liz Lemon when they disagree with someone, so I’m probably going to get limited mileage here.
Track the response. I was eyerolling bfred, not you. And his post, which was attempting to claim that Bee et al are trying to be Meet the Press, wasn’t worth more than an eyeroll.Having now argued that Tucker is at all an important political figure and not just a fucking propagandist white nationalist shitbird who foments existing hatreds of every stripe, you deserve your own eyeroll.
Use whatever words you want – we’re saying the same thing – just stop putting them in my mouth.
That’s not an apt description at all
I never said it was the priority nor the job description. I said they should be capable of it. Any given 20th century talk show tended to fit that bill.
“I said they should be capable of it.”
And that’s just as stupid. Someone’s mind being changed has EVERYTHING to do with the person and NOTHING to do with what ANYONE else says.
To even think anyone should be capable of changing another person’s mind is idiotic.
What minds were Johnny Carson or Jay Leno changing?
Late night shows are comedy shows first, of which they’re all reasonably successful.
You want to change hearts and minds, improve the education system.
Education is a lifelong process in which talk shows have always participated. Your view of education is too narrow.
Please don’t change your argument. Your OP explicitly raises the importance of talk shows (in this case the late night comedy variety) to change minds instead of reaffirming the beliefs of their audience.
It almost goes without saying these shows are just like any other whose main purpose is to attract and keep viewers (and advertisers in many cases). They do that by finding their audience of people that (mostly) agree with them, not constantly challenging them and probably alienating a bunch of them. Your expectations for these shows is too great.
Not to mention, they’re comedy shows. If the US is relying on the exceeding importance of these shows to educate and change people’s minds, then good luck ‘cause you’ll need it.
I’ll change my argument if I want to change my argument. I was responding to your invocation of “education.” Nothing you’re saying precludes the ethical imperative raised in my OP. However, if these things were about attracting and keeping viewers, one imagines Sam Bee wouldn’t have been canceled.Talk show hosts hold immense sway over the hearts and minds of viewers. Would you call Tucker Carlson a comedian? Would you say his show isn’t an extraordinarily important factor in American politics, and would you say American politics aren’t an extraordinarily important factor in American life?All in all, your condescension in the face of slight adversity is duly noted.
It’s exceedingly important in the times we live in for talk show hosts to be capable of changing mindsNo it isn’t.
Well by golly, I guess I’m wrong. Silly me. It seems you know my ethical priorities better than I do! What else should I know about myself?
You couldn’t handle it.
Easy to type. Very, very easy to type.
Oh good, you’ve been smacked down and are now playing the victim. YAY!!!
“It seems you know my ethical priorities better than I do!”
When you make blanket statements and people don’t agree, that doesn’t make you the victim.
Bill Maher tries, at least. If nothing else, you won’t find him repeating the same word-for-word narrative that every other one of these people will.
Bill Maher repeats his own talking points week after week regardless of changes happening around him.
He performs for people that agree with him as much as all these other hosts do. In the end it just comes down to if you like their sense of humor; if you do then watch them, if you don’t then watch something else.
Bill Maher has never changed a mind in his life, he panders to the most insufferable part of his audience* and never stops stroking. *An audience that I am largely a part of, with the exception of Bill Maher. Can’t stand him.
and never stops stroking. yeah he’s good like that.
Bill Maher is a gadfly with an audience of gadflies. Which is to say, just as useless.
No, you’ll just find him parroting libertarian talking points. He’s no better than any other talk show host in that regard.
As the person who usually makes this kind of argument in various comment sections, I would love it if these talk shows made a sincere effort to change people’s minds but I would also acknowledge it’s never gonna happen. It’s just not the business model. Because it’s politics + comedy, and that relies on your audience having the same/similar worldview as you.
What I do think, though, is that it’s pretty bad for the discourse when you have so many of these shows (not just talk shows) that spend so much time making jokes about Republicans without providing solid counterarguments to what they believe. It was one thing when it was just the Daily Show but now you have Bee, Meyers, Colbert, Kimmel, Oliver, Noah, Ruffin, Jefferies… I’m sure there’s more. I think Oliver comes closest to escaping this trap, Noah does so on rare occasions… but that’s it. The rest of the time, all they’re doing is preaching to the choir. It makes the left look like a bunch of sneering bougie twats who can’t argue facts but still consider their beliefs ‘superior’ and their opponents laughable.
Saying that… I did quite enjoy Bee’s stuff. The ‘Trump can’t read’ conspiracy theory is an all-time favorite segment of mine.
All or almost all of these shows do offer facts. Not to mention that they are also often critical of Democrats and the MSM.
Yeah, the angry, self-righteous smugness in so many of these shows turns me off. I find myself wanting to argue against them even when I’m in total agreement, and that all comes down to their tones.
Argue facts? One side is too far gone. That side believes the Lamestream Media is to blame for everything and that science does not mean shit unless it’s a better a iPhone.Another thing missing is media fragmentation. Almost all those talents you cite are on completely channels/networks/streams.
It’s entertainment. The sorting is done, minds aren’t being changed. Gadflies have their value. But again the value is limited — the best case scenario talk show has extremely limited value.
seen gutfeld ratings lately? They have significantly more value than you lead us to believe.
When have late night hosts ever really changed minds? I don’t recall Letterman ever shifting public sentiment on anything significant. Jay Leno mostly just joked about Clinton getting a blowjob for 10 years past its relevance.If we’re being broader than late night comedy talk shows, then even the most politically influential talk shows in media, those on Fox News, are fundamentally dedicated to reinforcing things their audience already believes.
It is also troubling that watching these shows makes mocking the objects of people’s scorn enough that everyone forgets to prosecute them.
Anyone in a position to prosecute is not simply indulging in scorn. This is ridiculous.
The show was beloved by critics and watched by almost no one. It was far more talked about than viewed.
I find John Oliver very useful as an education tool with my mother. She’s not especially right wing or a huge Fox News lover, but she is someone who is just relatively disengaged. She enjoys his humor and finds him pleasant to listen to and ends up learning a thing or two. That said, Oliver is also far more likely to pop up in a Facebook feed over Samantha Bee which may in part be down to HBO’s better management of their portfolio.
Oliver is easily the closest to what I’m talking about. It’s pretty funny that people are going on about late night hosts not changing people’s perspectives when that’s literally the entire function of his extraordinarily successful show.
I get that different hosts serve different functions and have different goals, but I’d add that it’s important to remember the sort of blissfully unaware middle? Colbert manages to slide in some message here and there. Is he going to set your crazy QAnon Aunt straight? Nope. But the random guy in the middle who maybe doesn’t have super strong feelings on it might go “huh…I didn’t think about that.”
No, literally the entire function of his extraordinarily successful show is making people laugh. I’m sure he, following in former boss Stewart’s shoes, would say the same. It’s an entertainment show that happens to feature information as a base for the entertainment.And I don’t know that *changing* perspective is something that information achieves so much as *offering* perspective. The deep dive/drilling down that the show does is less trying to convince anyone of anything than give people more data to process. It would be silly to pretend that the show doesn’t lean into a liberal world-view, but it would be equally silly to pretend that it’s never been critical of Dems or shallow lefties.Either way you’re really focusing on influencing opinion, which is only a side effect of the entertainment. Which is the actual, real, practical, literal purpose of these shows.
The OP is basically arguing the exceeding importance of people having their minds’ changed by someone you’ve never met and are only listening to recreationally.
It’s ironic that the OP is undermining their own point by failing to do the very thing they’re arguing.
Yes, yes. Very droll. Whimsical.(Watched this the other day and I’m still chuckling at some bits…)
No!
Oh sweetie. You really thing crazy right wing nuts will have their minds changed?
Don’t patronize me. You’re the one who’s written off half the country under the label of “crazy.” People’s minds can always be changed.
You mean the people who believe in jewish space lasers and believe that the apparently inept dems stole the election even though there has never been evidence? You mean the ones who believe a guy who sells pillows? No there is no fucking hope. Sorry to “patronize” you there. They have already hit rock bottom. The only way they will change their minds is when they die off.
Yes, I mean those people. Those ones are so much more salvageable than any given US politician or CEO. They don’t have any actual power and are desperately trying to grasp for some just like the rest of us. The Fred Hamptons of the world understand this.Hate to break it to you, but there’s no “dying off” when it comes to marginal ideology. If you’re so willing to wish death on them for the misguided path they’ve taken, then God help us when we stray from ours.
I have yet to see one of those Trump cultists come out and say they were wrong EVEN after all the Jan.6 releases. No those people are fucking lost and gone. The only chance is making sure the younger folks don’t fall into that bullshit trap.
That’s not such a bad thing. It’s politics for people who like things just as they are.
I don’t think after watching the show you could say she likes things the way they are? Am I missing something?
It is when you’re a cheerleader for the status quo. That’s what centerist figures are. Samantha Bee is only interested in the stagnant governments people like Joe Biden and his administration can bring.
“It’s politics for people who like things just as they are.
And the award for stupidest, most idiotic, moronic take goes to…
All they have left is American Dad right?
They do still have the game shows (The Cube, Wipeout) and sports (AEW, MLB), but I can see Zaslav ending them too.
“Business decision” translates into F*** comedy – F*** intelligent writing – F*** partisan views that could offend someone.
Ssomething touched me deep inside, the day Clapter Comedy died!
phooey
Honestly this isn’t surprising given the direction they want to take TBS (live sports, pro wrestling, and reruns). The show just doesn’t fit. It sucks that basically all the channels are going in this direction. Somebody set up a prayer circle for American Dad
I mean, they want to be out of the scripted TV business so badly that they pulled Chad (which I’ve never seen and might suck, but that’s not the point) off the schedule the day of its premiere. That’s “not if you were last man on Earth” territory.
Shitcanning a show on its premiere night is fucking cold blooded. They went through the trouble of filming the damn season, might as well air it right?
I remember when Paul Reiser did a new show for NBC that they cancelled after airing two episodes and he had to go on the Tonight Show the next day to pump the show because they couldn’t get another guest. He and Jay Leno had much fun at NBC’s expense, but I thought it was brutal that Reiser had to sit there and absorb this huge embarrassing failure in front of a late night audience while the wound was still so fresh (here is an article about it: https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/the-paul-reiser-show-cancelled-tv-show-19696/).So, cancelling Chad the night of its premiere is brutal, sure, but at least its star didn’t have to make the late night rounds this week promoting it. Could be worse.
Yeah but then you might have to *gasp* pay the people that worked on it more!
Speaking of Last Man on Earth, didn’t that show get canned prematurely too? No proper finale.
No, it did not get a proper finale.
That sucks, it was the best show on Fox at the time.
Was that the show where he was supposed to be like the last man on Earth, except for the bunch of other people running around?
I tried, I really tried, with Chad. I have a ton of affection for Nasim, she seems lovely and talented. . . But Chad was dire. Best I can analogize is the difference between Chad and funny would be the difference between David Brent being his usual obtuse self, and David Brent sputtering and flailing to win the office dance competition.
Chad didn’t suck, it was awesome. And I think I was the only one watching it.
I heard American Dad is green-lit for two more seasons. But that didn’t stop Chad from getting canceled with an entire unaired 2nd season. Adult Swim/HBO is the natural home for for that show anyways.
Disney owns the rights to American Dad so I assume if TBS let’s it go and depending on their previous deal with 20th Century Television, it could go Hulu/FX for reruns if nothing else. It fits in with everything else they’re doing on FX.
Honestly this isn’t surprising given the direction they want to take TBS (live sports, pro wrestling, and reruns).I find it funny that TBS started out life back in the eighties as live sport, pro wresteling and sitcom reruns. The wheel turns.
The point I tuned out was an early episode where she was talking with a bunch of real migrants about the real struggles they were going through, but in order to make it “funny” her whole bit was to say GOP talking points to their faces in a bad sitcom voice then mug to the cheap seats when they disagreed. It just felt insulting to bring these people in real stress and hardship into the studio so a rich white woman could say horrible things and then make stupid faces in an attempt at satire about as incisive as me writing stink lines and a “I POOP MY PANTS” word balloon over a picture of Mitch McConnel.
I confess I had no idea this was still on the air.
I like Samantha Bee and I liked her show a lot. I’m just here to see how many people feel the need to comment that she was just shrill and not funny as a way to justify the fact that they didn’t like the things that she had to say (and/or that she is a woman).
Or people didn’t like her for the same reason they got sick of almost every other pseudo-Daily-Show that sprung up and got cancelled over the past few years, even if they agreed with their politics.
Patriot Act was great. The Rundown was great. The Jim Jeffries Show was very good. I have been disappointed very time as they all managed to provide coverage of things not covered (or at least covered well by the MSM) and brought a personal POV to them. Full Frontal was not as good as those, but it was good and she did have her own voice.
Trump and Twitter combined to kill late night, and Bee’s show suffered like the rest. Here’s hoping she puts her considerable talents towards a more interesting endeavor. I often hope Colbert will do the same, but sadly he seems locked in. Such a waste.
Colbert and the Late Show are in a SUPER weird state. He took over the Late Show and the whole idea seemed to be to just do the same sort of easygoing, general comedy that it was under Letterman, and that all the other talk shows still were at the time. Sure, current events comes up, but it isn’t the only thing.And then… yeah. Trump happened. That caused different responses across late night, but Colbert had an early advantage in being… well, Colbert. People looked to him pretty fast because he had history with nightly political comedy, and he was able to slide that in pretty quick and easy. Sure, he couldn’t use the Colbert Report personality, but he’s still a seasoned performer and comedian with this sort of material, so he did well really quickly. The problem is that because everyone else he was competing with had to adapt much more heavily, they also got a lot better at it. He kinda got overtaken by everyone else who was willing to hit harder, while Colbert kinda stuck with that mode of ‘chill old-style late-night comedy but with more political comedy’.Unfortunately, things haven’t cooled down to the point where he can stop doing that, despite the fact he clearly seems to want to.
At the end of the day, Colbert just captured something really special with The Colbert Report, and Trump pretty much ruined whatever magic he was going to recapture with The Late Show.
lol, imagine what colbert report could have been during the trump years
I think Trump made The Colbert Report redundant.
Oh darn.
Disappointed.
I feel like this move has more to do with TBS’ new direction (letting other people produce scripted content and then licensing it) than Samantha Bee’s show in particular. It is an interesting flip of the Netflix model, which is trying to get away from licensed content and own all their own things. Obviously, the models are different since Netflix is a paid subscription and TBS is included in cable. But I am curious whether more people generally want new content or the cold comfort of reruns and reality tv. I genuinely do not know the answer.As for Bee herself, I saw episodes here and there but my complaint about her show is the same I have about Colbert, The Problem, LWT, TDS, etc. Those shows are not going to change minds, nor are they expected to. But years ago I stopped being entertained by shows that point out what a shitty dystopian world we live in and end it with “well, sucks to be alive. Good night!” I know we live in a shitty world that is getting worse. Having a comedian point that out with clever wordplay or tying in pop culture references does nothing for me these days.
I really liked Sam Bee, I loved to hear from a women making fun of all those white men (I’m a male POC) who helped agent orange become president because they didn’t want a women in office.Her and Noah from the Daily show are really good at what they do at adding a minority voice to the spoof news. Let’s see if they keep wrestling or if they dump that as well and become all baseball and repeats.
“I loved to hear from a women”“because they didn’t want a women in office.”
Nowadays we’re referring to ONE of them as a “woman”.
I’m pretty sure she covered the (majority of) white women voters who helped give us president orange as well.
She did, she destoryed them in a segment or two.
Conservative here who loved the Daily Show when Stewart hosted it, and laughed heartily every time his team excoriated some conservative white congressman. That said, Samantha Bee’s show had not of the cleverness and wit of the Daily Show—including the Daily Show seasons she was in. Her schtick worked when she was a bit part, but you cannot put a personality front and center whose only trick is smugly going after easy targets while winking to the audience. The Daily Show understood this, and it farmed out the more vicious political criticisms to the correspondents, who played progressive zealots to Stewarts more centered straight-man. This worked because you need a straight man to play off of the person giving an over the top, indignant lecture. But Full Frontal didn’t have a straight-man. It was all-indignant-lecture, all the time, and that isn’t funny (regardless of your politics). It’s like listening to a minister scream a sermon at you in church, or watching pretty much anything Keith Olberman has ever done. Watching someone wrestle paper tigers over and over again just isn’t very entertaining.
good. that show sucked
And nothing of value was lost.
There are far too, many streaming services out there for this show to not find a new home and quickly.
TBS must have just realized that the show existed.