‘The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore’ a Welcome Work in Progress

“The Oscar nominations are out and they’re so white a grand jury decided not to indict them.”  – Larry Wilmore.

It’s a good joke and it would’ve been even better the evening right after the Oscars were announced. That’s one of the awkward parts of reviewing the first episode of a show like this. It’s going to take a few episodes to settle into its routine and to be able to skewer the headlines while they’re still hot.

With that qualification, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore shows a great deal of promise and will be a welcome follow up to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Unlike Stephen Colbert in the timeslot he is replacing, Wilmore isn’t obviously playing a character. Rather he brings the sharp but amiable comic persona that worked so well on The Daily Show to the hosting chair.

In the ads and at the opening of the show (“It’s Comedy Central’s worst nightmare – brother finally gets a show in late night TV… but of course he’s gotta work on Martin Luther King Day.”) Wilmore signals that a racial perspective is going to be part of the fabric of the show. His opening monologue and the subsequent panel discussion in the first episode at least bear that out with jokes and discussion revolving around Selma, Ferguson, Eric Garner and Al Sharpton.

So far though, Wilmore’s comedy is inclusive rather than angry or divisive. He’s more than willing to sharply jab at an injustice (on climate change: “It won’t just be black people saying, ‘I can’t breathe'”), but he doesn’t hesitate to poke at Al Sharpton either, calling him “the black Batman” in his rush to come to the defense of seemingly every black cause in the headlines. About Martin Luther King portrayer David Oyelowo’s Oscar snub: “He’s a British brother. I don’t really care about them.”

After the comic look at current events, Wilmore invited in a Real Time with Bill Maher-like panel (minus Maher’s smug-prick persona and the carefully planted conservative mouthpieces to drum up controversy) that included Comedian Bill Burr, Senator Cory Booker, rap artist Talib Kweli and Nightly Show correspondent Shenaz Treasury. Wilmore moderated a back and forth conversation on race that, in its inaugural edition felt a little more uptight and pre-planned than a genuine free for all. Wilmore is clearly sharp, perceptive and fearless however so I predict this segment (assuming it will be a regular feature) will continue to improve as the hot settles into the gig.

It’s hard to imagine that a headline driven show will revolve completely around race every episode, but I hope the racial perspective is present more often than not. It’s one thing for a white comedian to comment on racial issues (Stewart does a fine job), but it’s a whole other thing to hear it coming from a black man. We need this now more than ever.