Colbert handles the field interviews better because he’s a disembodied voice not being dickish to someone’s face. I can’t stand that. Even when it’s deserved, they look like bullies.
Jason Jones and Samantha Bee don’t have personalities, or at least a comic personality that automatically transforms what they say and do into laughter. You either have one or you don’t. John Oilver does and Jon Stewart does. The rest have schticks, mostly playing off their ethnicities, which work when the subject calls for it and fails when it doesn’t. Larry Wilmore absolutely kills whenever he’s on because he has an ethnicity and a personality.
Maybe Bee and Jones should always be paired together and use their marriage as the schtick. At least that would be something to play off of. Or they could clean house with Oliver leaving and get some funny people on.
I don’t know if I’d point it to the writing for her segments and the topics they’re able to bring up when she’s reporting, but I really think Jessica Williams is killing it. She did great in her stop and frisk segment (The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - TV Series | Comedy Central US)
It seemed to me that Colbert, Helms, Corrdry, and maybe a couple of other late 90’s/early 2000’s correspondents were better at it. Somehow they weren’t being dicks, but they got the interviewees to say the most amazingly stupid stuff. It’s an unbelievable skill.
I think the talent is there for the correspondents, they just need better writing. There are too many bits that are so unfunny that even the in studio audience does’t laugh. That doesn’t happen on The Colbert Report.
That said, I did like the recent bit when the black lady (I forget her name) went to Ontario and basically called them all a bunch of pussies.
The only reason Bee has become less disliked by me is the realization how hard it is to work into that show. Olivia Munn(other than being smoking hot) is normally talented and funny. But her work on that show was so bad and painfully uncomfortable to watch, it gave me a new perspective.
Though to qualify that a bit, Colbert’s audience practically worships him to the point of annoyance. Not that he doesn’t deserve a lot of it, but geez.
Black, Hodgman and Wilmore are more guest commentators than correspondents, and all great. Wilmore is amazingly funny.
I actually think the field reports have improved lately. For a long time they consisted of the correspondent making fun of him or herself as the interviewee looked on confused, which I figured was the result of everyone being in on the joke. Now, perhaps thanks to the Tea Party, they have found more clueless morons out there.
I like the panel discussions if the writing is good. It isn’t always.
The big problem with TDS is that anyone good gets jobs elsewhere. I’d hate to be the person scheduling talent for that show - it must be a nightmare working around movies and series. And it is nice that they could afford to send Jessica Williams (who is improving rapidly) to real as opposed to green screen Toronto.
Wilmore is great, Madrigal is good and the rest aren’t very funny at all.
Jason Jones is the worst of the lot. He went to Iran during their elections when they were on the verge of a revolution and he made jokes about their toilets. Imagine if Colbert or Ed Helms has still been on TDS and given that opportunity.
I think TDS’ correspondents problem is that don’t really have any good ones any more and Stewart has to carry the whole show. As a result, his smarmy mugging gets old night after night. That’s why John Oliver was such a breath of fresh air.
Oh man, I would so ruin her if I ever got the chance. Something about that dour school-marmish look of hers drives me wild.
Anyway, I’ve never been a big fan of the desk segments, for most of the reasons mentioned in this thread, in particular the fact that most of the correspondents just don’t have the comic timing to pull off these scripted bits. Al Madrigal and Jason Jones are especially painful to watch sometimes.
One of my favorite bits was where they appeared to have both Aasif Mandvi and Rob Riggle in Iraq…only to reveal that Mandvi was standing in front of a green screen and was obscuring the view of Riggle who was actually in Iraq.
As much as I love Olivia Munn, she was the worst correspondent. Which is why I think she only had two or three segments and was never seen on the show again.
