I just watched as much of the debut of Dennis Miller’s CNBC show as I could bear. It was, to be kind, not very good. Maybe this was opening day jitters and the show will hit a groove after a few episodes. If it doesn’t get better, though, the execs at the network will rue the day they cancelled Alan Keyes.
The point of starting off what purports to be a serious talk show with a monkey sidekick escaped me. Not only did it set a bizarre tone, it wasn’t even funny. A bad combo.
I thought scheduling Arnold Schwarzenegger as the guest was a master stroke. Until I heard the interview. Man, that was awful. For one thing, even though California is easily the most populous state, very few of us are interested in a 20 minute chat on local politics, especially when it basically consists of Schwarzenegger repeating campaign mantras over and over and using the phrase “the last five years” as often as possible. Bor-ring.
The “snarky comments on the news” segment wasn’t very good, but it was fairly hit and miss on the HBO show, too. The opener about how they didn’t have a studio audience because the reactions of a bunch of tourists who’d just finished looking at chalk outlines of Sal Mineo was rather clever.
I’m not sure what the spiel about things he’d like to do with the show at some point in the future was. Save that for the production meetings. And, frankly, I don’t care whether Fox owes you $12,000.
The “Varsity Panel” of David Horowitz, Naomi Wolf, and David Frum was somewhat interesting. They’re all bright folks. But listening to Wolf trying to debate the others on weapons of mass destruction was painful.
