The 1/2 Hour News Hour Tries Again Tonight

The first episode of the 1/2 Hour News Hour was sporadic at best. It had some very funny moments (such as the section on Barack Obama's "B.O. Magazine" and the article "A Life in Politics - My 18th Month Journey"), but the rest of the show was up and down. Part of the problem with the pilot is that it can't be as topical as a regularly scheduled program. Since they don't know what will be in the news at the time it's shown, they have to go with "evergreen" stories, or stories that can be aired at any time.

The second pilot airs tonight at 10pm EST on Fox News and will still suffer from being less than topical, and hopefully it will be more consistently funny, since I think there is a place on TV for a conservative satire show. The producer, Joel Surnow, makes his pitch for watching the show at National Review:

Why did you decide to create this show?

Two reasons: One, I felt that in the interest of equal time there was a real need for sharp, intelligent political satire on TV from a conservative perspective to counterbalance all the really good political satire already on TV that comes from a left-of-center perspective. And two, I bet a friend of mine I could create a TV show that would make Michael Moore spontaneously burst into flames.


What is the show like?

It’s a “Weekend Update”/Daily Show/The McLaughlin Group hybrid, which makes The Half Hour News Hour the first hybrid ever endorsed by the FOX News Channel, its management, or its parent company, Halliburton.


How is The Half-Hour News Hour different from other conservative comedy shows on television?

It’s different in the sense that there aren’t any other conservative comedy shows on television.

We'll see how they do tonight.

UPDATE: It was awful.