Critic Reviews

Wilmore proves a smart and capable host in his auspicious debut.

Wilmore’s approach was pointed (as pointed as a sharp stick) and often funny. Most of all, he brought a perspective to late-night TV--as the basis for entire nightly comedy show--that's been missing from late-night TV for just about as long as late-night TV has been around.

Although there were rough patches, The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore planted its own flag with Monday night’s premiere and is a solid addition to the late-night stew.

As for first impressions, I liked it. ... Slight nitpicking should not obscure the fact that overall Wilmore was funny; his show was smart and thoughtful, has a bright future and seems an excellent fit with Stewart and the Comedy Central brand.

With the necessary caveat that it’s fruitless to “review” a late-night show after one night ... [the panel discussion] is the segment that will need the most work. ... Maybe the most important first impression from a talk show’s first night is simply point-of-view: does the show know what it is, and why it is? Here The Nightly Show really has something going for it.

An unsteady but very likable debut. ... That's about as good as anyone can expect from a talk show that debuted on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and that's going to spend the next few weeks or months perfecting itself while shouldering the burden of immense and mostly unreasonable expectations.

As you'd expect from a new late-night show, parts of it worked better than others, and no doubt tweaks will be forthcoming. But overall, Monday's opening outing got Wilmore off to a solid start. ... It helps immensely that, in his first night, Wilmore already seemed completely comfortable as the show's host.

The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore isn’t perfect, and it might not find its stride for a few weeks yet. But with this first episode, Wilmore and his team are demonstrating that they are not afraid of asking hard questions, whether those questions are about police brutality, representation in film, biracial identity, or how and when women feel safe in public. It takes a lot of skill to boil a complicated issue down to a single question; it takes even more to make that question funny.

He’s got some work to do in the pacing of the table discussions, but Wilmore’s sensibility is immediately relatable: common sense enlivened by a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Comedy Central appears to have come up with a worthy partner to “The Daily Show,” with Stewart and Wilmore as the salt and pepper shakers of late-night TV. A half-hour of humor, opinion, issues, and conversation, The Nightly Show has the potential to resonate as it evolves in the coming months.