We now have an idea of what Comedy Central’s highly anticipated Minority Report will be like., which fans of The Daily Show have witnessed on more than a few occassions. When comedian Larry Wilmore was picked to replace Stephen Colbert (who is stepping down from his gig hosting The Colbert Report to host The Late Show on CBS), one of the first things fans wondered is how much the new show would mimic the old. Thanks to the website Fast Company, we have a little bit of an idea:
We’ve got seven and a half months to really figure it out,” says Comedy Central president Michele Ganeless. But if everything goes according to plan, the show could be more than just a hilarious take on the day’s news. It could function as a key farm team for new Comedy Central talent.The Minority Report setup will be similar to The Daily Show and Colbert Report, but with a twist: For parts of the show Wilmore will be joined by a panel of co-hosts, presumably along the lines of The View or Real Time With Bill Maher.
“The general concept is Larry will be the anchor of the show and the first act will likely be Larry’s take on the news of the day or cultural hot topics of the moment,” says Ganeless. “Then [there will be] a panel. The panel will be the second act, we’ll likely have a guest interacting with the panel in the third act.”
The panel discussion part sounds like a lot of fun. Wilmore is always great in these types of situations.
In the interview, Ganeless said they want to reflect a lot of points of view. “It’s not being done right now in late night—a panel of diverse voices, a panel of underrepresented voices,” she said. “This is the African American point of view, the female point of view, the Latino point of view, on all issues of the day. It’s holistic—it’s not just about looking at a black point of view and black issues. It’s giving these underrepresented voices an opportunity to be heard on all issues.”
“…The Minority Report will be another place where we will have a stable of comic voices that we come to like, agree with, disagree with, (that) our audience hopefully can have a conversation with. People come to The Daily Show to hear Jon’s point of view. People come to The Colbert Report to hear Stephen’s point of view. Hopefully people will come to this show not only to hear Larry’s point of view but because they love panelist A or panelist B and they want to hear what they have to say every night.”
Interesting. So people watch those shows to hear the points of view of two white male hosts on Comedy Central. This formula has worked really well for Comedy Central for a long time. But when a black man is the host, suddenly now it’s the time for the show shift away from just the host’s point of view. I’m hoping they mean the show is going to be a lot more inclusive for all voices, including women, people of color, LGBT, etc. But what if they just mean more white dudes will be on the show? Why the need to publicly de-emphasize that the show is going to feature his voice and his perspective as a black man? I’m a little troubled that a black man takes over as host on a network after a long history of two successful white men and suddenly it’s DON’T WORRY THIS WON’T JUST BE ABOUT HIS VOICE! Is it late and am I just reading waaaaaaay too much into that? Maybe. I know one thing for sure—Wilmore is going to be fucking funny as all hell. That you can count on.
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