by Aitch Cee

I will be first to admit that I don’t stay up late enough to watch The Daily Show or before it went off the air, The Cobert Report. I do watch both when I could during the rebroadcasts around 6pm in the evening or even via the app. So, I was a little stunned and pleasantly surprised when Comedy Central said in May of last year that Larry Wilmore would be tapped to get the gig that Stephen Cobert would be vacating. Truth be told, when Cobert said he was stepping down, I just knew someone like John Oliver (who is also doing a bang up job on Last Week Tonight) would get the nod. Wilmore did and I like the direction that Comedy Central is taking.   Wilmore has a chance to succeed in a place where very few past late night TV hosts, like Arsenio Hall and W. Kamau Bell have had difficulty.

Upon first blush, you may consider The Nightly Show to be the Black version of The Daily Show with a sprinkle of Real Time with Bill Maher added in. The set design and the opening music sound similar but that’s where it ends. Wilmore comes out, delivers some dialogue about the night’s topic and other pertinent issues. Then there is his round table with a few notables in politics and show biz. So far from what I have seen is that, like his predecessors, Wilmore’s guests come from different walks of life. Once the topic of discussion begins, Wilmore lets his guests talk instead of trying to insert a joke at a bad point. Some may stray off the point a bit but like a good mediator and host, he steers them right back in.  Best of all, when Wilmore does drop his jokes in, he does this with the near same deadpan delivery and straight face that Jon Stewart has done and his comments seem to be a little more off the cuff than they are scripted. Now mind you, he is not trying to mimic Stewart in any way but Wilmore pulls this off without it being cornball-ish or coon-ish.

The last segment of the show especially excels at being off the cuff. Called “Keeping it 100”, Wilmore will ask his guests questions and they have to react or as they say it’s the “Black version of truth or dare, without the dare.” If your answer is solid, you get a Keeping it 100 sticker or weak tea. It’s all meant to put his guests on the spot but surprisingly in 3 episodes, I have been amazed at the range of questions asked and some of the answers. Look at what happened to Senator Cory Booker and Amy Holmes.

Wilmore, in my opinion,  may be the outlet needed to be able to say some of the provocative and sometimes uncomfortable truths about Black America that Jon Stewart and company can’t get away with. And some of these words need to be said and heard considering how many headlines we have dominating our community.  This was Wilmore’s role when he was the “Black Correspondent” on the Daily Show and now he has his own vehicle to expand that role and be a voice that we don’t have on late night TV. This isn’t a show that goes above the heads of Americans but drops issues right into our laps and allows him to say some of the same things that many of us only discuss among ourselves either in real life or through social media. It’s a show that if it succeeds, will get a lot more of us interested in what’s going on around us because it’s one of those rare times we get a face that represents us talking about issues that affects us. Catch his show Monday through Thursday at 11:30pm EST on Comedy Central or get the Comedy Central app for your mobile and watch it anytime you want. It’s worth it.