Review: Full Frontal’s Samantha Bee Runs Too Long?

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Samantha Bee Runs a Little Too Long

In general the worst of Full Frontal is going to be vastly better than the best of shows like The Bachelorette or Big Brother, but not all of Samantha Bee’s shows are going to be top-notch, as I discovered in her broadcast of March 21st.

There were three major segments, and the first one started off well enough. It dealt with the Republican Senate’s patently bogus effort to block the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. It was, on the whole, a funny-enough segment, but suffered a bit in comparison to John Oliver’s bit on that same subject the night before. Of course you could make the argument that you can never have enough of shaming Mitch McConnell and Orrin Hatch into doing their damn job. If you don’t get HBO and Ms. Bee’s segment is the first one you see on this subject, you will probably enjoy it. To cover that contingency, I have included a clip, below. I place the blame for the luke-warm response to the Monday segment entirely on me for being a comedy pig.

The next segment was timely, but it was too provocative to be very comical, and that was as it should be. Samantha Bee launched into a diatribe about the horrendous backlog of rape kits that exist throughout the nation. There is no one area of the country that is innocent of this outrage. As Ms. Bee speculated at one point, who could be in favor of rape? You would think nobody would, but ignoring and then, in many cases, destroying the rape kits before the situations can be examined in a court of law, seems tantamount to giving the rapist a Get Out of Jail Free card. Perhaps I was too astonished at the callousness of those who are supposed to guard the public safety to catch all the resounding belly laughs, but, again, that might just be me. I am not really panning this segment for its lack of chuckles. It raised an important point that needs to be acknowledged.

It was in the next segment where Full Frontal fell full frontally on its face, which is why I say the show ran too long. They could have run a montage of owls eating mice, as David Letterman sometimes did, and found a better way to complete the show.

What they did use as a third segment was to have leading Atheist spokesman David Silverman invade the CPAC conference and beard the attending conservatives—many of them evangelicals—in their lair. Did Silverman excoriate them for their positions on the important issues of the day? Not so much. Instead, he spent most of his time mocking them for their Judeo-Christian religious beliefs. The segment took very little time to become tedious. Okay, in a land that explicitly embraces the separation of church and state, the underlying concept is that your religion (as long as it does not violate any secular laws, such as too many wives or bomb detonation) is your business. If that means that Christians have no right to assail Atheists, then it must also mean that Atheists have no right to assail Christians. Some of my very best friends are Atheists, and I value their friendship. Other very good friends of mine believe in the literal truth of the Bible. I maintain friendships with both groups and many others in between, based not at all on how they deal with the matter of a supreme being, but, rather, how they deal with me. David Silverman and, to the extent that she backed his play, Samantha Bee would be well to adopt such an attitude.

To my way of thinking, The Golden Rule applies to everybody, even Atheists.

Full Frontal, TBS, March 21, 2016

 

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Thomas Cleveland Lane

Thomas Cleveland Lane is a semi-retired freelance writer for pay and a stage actor for nothing more than the opportunity to make a fool of himself. Well, he does get a small stipend from the Washington Area Decency League, after playing the role of Hinezie in The Pajama Game, to never, ever appear on stage in his underpants again. When he has not managed to buffalo some director into casting him, Thomas can often be found at his favorite piano bar, annoying the patrons with his caterwauling. Thomas is the author of an anthology called Shaggy Dogs, a Collection of Not-So-Short Stories (destined to become a cult classic, shortly after he croaks). He is also the alter-ego to a very unbalanced Czech poet named Glub Dzmc. Mr. Lane generally resides in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and was last seen in the mirror, three days ago.
Thomas Cleveland Lane
Thomas Cleveland Lane
Thomas Cleveland Lane is a semi-retired freelance writer for pay and a stage actor for nothing more than the opportunity to make a fool of himself. Well, he does get a small stipend from the Washington Area Decency League, after playing the role of Hinezie in The Pajama Game, to never, ever appear on stage in his underpants again. When he has not managed to buffalo some director into casting him, Thomas can often be found at his favorite piano bar, annoying the patrons with his caterwauling. Thomas is the author of an anthology called Shaggy Dogs, a Collection of Not-So-Short Stories (destined to become a cult classic, shortly after he croaks). He is also the alter-ego to a very unbalanced Czech poet named Glub Dzmc. Mr. Lane generally resides in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and was last seen in the mirror, three days ago.