Megyn Kelly Today

Kelly's debut had an intensely cheery, manic first-date energy. ... Hair needs to be let down, but Kelly’s first hour gave no indication that this is a job she can’t learn.

Kelly knows how to work the camera, and the camera knows how to get the best out of her. For Kelly, and NBC, that’s the good news from Monday’s launch. Otherwise, that long “Will & Grace” cast interview was a self-inflicted injury that clouded what this new show is and can be.

The combination is tricky, and the first episode was a bit awkward. Like any new series, Megyn has some growing pains, and that was apparent in missed cues, clumsy seating arrangements and some stiffness from Kelly, who, whether because of nervousness or her attempts to develop a new tone, speaks with a strange cadence.

Kelly herself tried to reframe her narrative, kicking off the show by giving a bit of history about herself. (Well, sort of. She never mentioned “Fox News” once.) It was perhaps the most honest part of the show, as Kelly recounted the death of her father when she was just a teenager. ... But the rest of Megyn Kelly Today remained a bit unfocused.

Kelly began the show with an apparently scripted speech that was surely designed to render her approachable and accessible, but, weirdly, had the sort of amped-up melodramatic fervor that would not have been out of place during one of Joel Osteen’s or, for that matter, Jimmy Swaggart’s bouts of televangelistic testimony.

Nervous and rushed. ... The ageless cast members [of Will & Grace], cramped into one loveseat, fielded a handful of lame questions from Kelly. ... The show’s final segment was a sop.

Kelly is now trying to show her softer side, but it manifests itself as intense squishiness. ... The entire cast of the network’s revived sitcom Will & Grace trotted out to submit to a long but skimpy interview. (By contrast, the interview the cast did with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb in the very next hour was far more relaxed and funny.) ... First-day jitters are understandable, and perhaps by the end of the week, Kelly won’t be contorting her face into a rictus grin. Perhaps she will allow for exchanges with the studio audience and with guests that don’t sound scripted.

The first week of Megyn Kelly Today most closely resembled a familiar political ritual: an awkward rebranding campaign by handlers trying to humanize their candidate. ... It’s just not enjoyable.

The host was so buried under cloying anecdotes and “cute” moments (her husband was in the audience and gave her roses!) that any appeal she might have naturally had was buried by carefully stage-managed artifice. ... In an interview with the cast and creators of NBC’s own “Will & Grace,” Kelly never established a relaxing rapport with them. ... In a later segment on a nun who works with young people and bereaved mothers in a low-income neighborhood in Chicago, Kelly again never quite connected with her subjects. The pre-taped piece had little depth.

The problem is that Kelly, for all her forced bonhomie, is more chilly than chill. ... And an interview with the cast and creators of Will & Grace evinced neither particular familiarity with the show nor a take beyond that having fun is fun. ... It was the spectacle of a person forcing herself to talk about anything other than the news.