The Colbert Report

In the run-up to the show it all sounded a bit hard to get your head around, but in the flesh the show zinged, at least this first week.

Mr. Colbert's on-camera persona may not wear well over the long term, but for now at least "The Colbert Report" is a worthy spinoff, an icy-cold beer chaser to the shot of whiskey that is "The Daily Show."

Colbert proves that the line between serious TV journalism and utter nonsense is a very thin one indeed. [4 Nov 2005, p.67]

The biggest question hanging over "The Colbert Report" is whether the show’s sendup of the pomposity and fear-mongering of cable news blowhards will be as appealing in the long term as "The Daily Show’s" satire of public figures and the news media as a whole.

One of Colbert's strengths has always been wordplay, which is in full force on ''The Colbert Report" and gives the show an added level of wit.

"The Daily Show" spinoff has gotten off to an impressive start with a topnotch premiere followed by a respectable second outing that underscores just how challenging it will be to sustain this half-hour high-wire act four nights a week.

It's got a way to go to become a polished program, but made a very solid and affable first impression.

Unlike Daily anchorman Jon Stewart, he's not only ridiculing the headlines but mocking himself. This is closer to acting than comedy, and it may be tougher. But Stephen Colbert is a great American and deserves our support. And suppore. [7 Nov 2005, p.41]

When it is clicking, The Colbert Report is Countdown on mescaline -- occasionally brilliant, occasionally loopy, definitely entertaining.

The new show dovetails nicely with its lead-in to present a solid hour of skewered news and punctured pomposity.

By its very nature, the position Colbert occupies—the butt of his own show's joke—seems more difficult to sustain than Stewart's role as the eternal observer.

Colbert was an invaluable part of the Daily Show, but as the whole show, he's not enough and too much simultaneously.

It's more an intellectual, in your head, "hey, that's clever," than a laugh-out-loud funny.

A few kinks are painfully apparent. Foremost among them is the blowhard persona Colbert forces on us for half an hour. It feels like a weaker extension of "The Daily Show."

Colbert is very skillful at parodying people who are already parodies of themselves, and his show is a lot sharper than most of what passes for comedy on TV. At the end of the day, though--a day, say, on which a President says something foolish, or a Supreme Court nominee has to step aside, or a White House aide is indicted--the voice you’ll most want to hear is still Jon Stewart’s.

This would be hilarious, except that political talk TV has become such a parody of itself that watching them is more than enough comedy for anybody.

Monday’s premiere was one of the most nearly perfect half-hours of television I’ve ever seen.... [But] I can’t imagine tuning in “The Colbert Report” four nights a week just to watch a caricature.

Smart fun.... But Report often feels like an overlong, overindulged sketch.

It turns out that it's a lot easier to make fun of the news than to parody the people who deliver it.

What worked so well in short Daily Show-sized bites wears thin over a half-hour program.