I've had the most difficult time letting go of Dennis Miller. I've always respected him for knowing the limitations of his own talent, thus he is one of the few SNL alums to consciously not make a serious attempt at the big screen. Sure, he's had his missteps, but at least he is willing to take a few chances, and no matter how hard he falls on his face, he manages to protect himself.
And he is also not afraid to admit publicly -- very publicly -- that he has changed greatly in the last few years. He says that the events of 9/11 changed how he views the world and politics. What he means when he says this is that he has become conservative. Uncomfortably conservative. So much so, in fact, that he has stated in the pre-press for his new show on CNBC that he will not make any cracks against George W. Bush. He says he likes the President and he likes the job he's doing.
While any regular readers of this blog know, the value of Bush's presidency is an issue where Dennis and I will disagree. But the idea that a good comedian's politics would somehow make a subject -- any subject -- off-limits just seemed like a really, really bad precedent. I mean, it's not a censorship issue, by any means. It's Dennis' show, so whatever-the-hell he wants to do, that's his prerogative. And it's not like he'd be the first pundit-like semi-comedy, semi-news show to have an agenda. I just didn't see the move coming from Mr. Miller. So though I was surprised and perplexed by Dennis' decision to hold his tongue on all things Bush, I still had a little respect for the guy. What can I say: It's hard for me to say goodbye for good.
So I planned on watching the first week of the new show -- even if it was going to be a "Bush-free zone." I finally tore through the shows on my TiVo recently, so here's some belated thoughts several days after the event. Hey, it's the best I can do, what with the house purchase and all.
The first moment's of the series did not make me any less dubious. You pretty much expected one of his "rants" right off the bat, and a sort of rant came out in his preface, where a chimpanzee, which is credited as a "co-host" on the show, was used as a metaphor for all the balance Dennis hopes to bring to his TV audience. He hopes he can bring some levity and truth to the table, cutting through all the b.s. that we get all the time from politics. Again, these words seem much more hollow with his promise that the current administration will not be harshed on.
The chimpanzee (which he constatly calls a "monkey" over and over throughout the first week of the series -- I hope someone has set him straight by now) is a weak gimmick, and it's hard not to watch the "interaction" between Dennis and the chimp and wonder if, by Thursday, he was re-thinking the idea the same way that David Schwimmer has famously hated "Marcel" from his TV show.
Anyway, after the opening salvo, things got all soft as he lobbed Arnold Schwarzenegger some of the biggest softballs I've ever seen, basically framing questions in this basic fashion: "A lot of people seem to be upset about the Bush administration doing _______, but isn't he completely right to do it that way?" Keeping things nice and safe and basically handing everyone their talking points. Thus enabling them to seem quite earnest when, at the close of the interview, they each pipe up with "Congratulations on the new show, Dennis!"
Dennis attempts a sort of "Weekend Update" news segment he calls "The Daily Rorshach," but on three of the first four nights, it falls incredibly flat. The fact that they've gone without a studio audience makes things a little challenging for him, but we still hear the off-camera giggling of the crew, which always reminds me of the inane Talk Soup -- not a the type of programming that I would think a channel like CNBC necessarily wants to be likened to.
And then there's a panel each night, made up of one conservative (David Horowitz in the first week), one liberal (Naomi Wolf), and one celebrity, sometimes a politician and sometimes an entertainer from Dennis' past. (Martin Short sat in on Thursday night.) This could easily be the best part of the show, where there is the possibility of some good debate from some good minds. Unfortunately, Dennis (or his director) knows nothing about keeping things in any sort of control, and on most nights, when everyone wasn't talking over everyone else, Naomi was pleading with David to please, please, please let her finish her thought without him interrupting, and David insisting to Naomi that he wasn't interrupting.
Dennis was clearly uncomfortable the first couple of nights, but he was slowly finding his bearings by Wednesday night. The show might get better over time, but not without some changes. Like a small studio audience. Or perhaps less limitations on the subject matter. Dennis is still looking for a vehicle that fits as well as his HBO show was. Sadly, this isn't it. The good news, I suppose, is that I'm not going to have to keep watching. One week was enough to know that, conservative bent or not, this show was not a good exploitation of Dennis' strengths.
It's a hard breakup for Dennis and me. Luckily, he's trying to make it as easy as possible.
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