The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore

I've been a loyal viewer of The Daily Show for many years and have really enjoyed all of Jon's correspondents, Larry Wilmore included. But he has big shoes to fill in replacing Colbert.

Colbert always complimented Jon well in that he could make light of many ridiculous topics, especially enjoyable after Daily Show episodes which tend to highlight injustice, partisan politics and other frustrating aspects of our nation. Important topics to discuss, but not necessarily to go to sleep on. Colbert would often lighten the mood by entertaining many topics creatively.

Larry, on the other hand, seems to only focus on the black struggle from his perspective as well as those of his black panel guests (and a couple of token white guests who appear as outsiders with little to contribute). The topic of racial divide is a heated one and not one I'm excited to go to sleep on every night.

For me to continue watching the show I'll need to see some topic diversity.

Random thoughts:

• More monologue, less panel - What's with the inverted map??

UPDATE: After watching the show for awhile now I can say that topic diversity didn't help. The show is boring, plain & simple. I've officially stopped watching it. Wilmore is not great on his own, he has little in his comedy toolbox.

I really liked Larry Wilmore's segments on the Daily Show and was looking forward to seeing him with his own show. All in all the show's not bad, but it's not nearly as good as I'd hoped it would be.

In particular, I'm disappointed with the recent spate of "Nightly" reports by Grace Para - they're silly, not at all funny, and pretty much a waste of time. She's an attractive woman and she can be funny - but these segments are simply an annoying distraction from the show itself. Many of the other repeating segments fall into this same category.

What I like best about the show is the roundtable discussion - many of these are thoughtful and they cover some interesting and timely topics. I wish there was more of this and less of the silly segments.

I loved Larry Wilmore on the Daily Show, so I gave him a full week's chance on his own ... but it's not working. The problem, I think, is that Larry isn't a great solo act. On the Daily Show, as the "Senior Black Corespondent," he was bouncing off of Stewart. Maybe that's why they decided to do these panel discussions for a good majority of the show, but I've never found it interesting to watch a group of strangers (or near strangers) chat about a subject.

I don't mind that the show is focused on black issues and concerns, and in fact I was ready to find that spin refreshing. His panels are somewhat racially diverse, so I don't feel left out as a white woman ... I'm afraid I just don't think the format is working, and I'm not convinced that Larry has the right force of personality to make this show work.

I tried to watch "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" the other night and I couldn't get through it. The comedy was flat, the presentation lame, and the weird cutaways with the captioned still shots of Larry Wilmore were horribly unfunny.

The other "effect" I found annoying was that the talking head shot during the dialog would switch from full screen to a shot of the host on a monitor. Very distracting. I have no idea what that was supposed to accomplish, but it failed miserably.

Comedy Central raised the bar with informative, energetic shows like Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. Once viewers have tasted filet mignon they certainly don't want to settle for canned corned beef hash.

Larry Wilmore takes over the spot behind The Daily Show after Stephen Colbert leaves for his CBS late night talk show. Eight months after the debut, Jon Stewart leaves The Daily Show and replaced by Trevor Noah. The show is canceled before two complete seasons.

It's surprising that his show got Unblackening before the White House. It's not surprising that the show got canceled eventually. It started off badly. Honestly, I stopped watching after two episodes. I reconnected later on and appreciated its point of view. The Colbert Report is a tough show to replace. The Nightly Show is never going to measure up. I do like this more than Trevor Noah. Wilmore is not a natural performer and his monologue is not the best. His most notable performance may be calling the President n-word. It's the show's black-centric take that gives it its unique flavor.