Who will talk the longest?
People groan Monday mornings because it means getting back to work. For me, it meant the new season of daytime TV. I remained in my PJs and got ready for 10 hours of DVR’ed programming.
This season it is the return of the daytime talk show. You might remember 15 years ago when the chair-throwing, wig-pulling, oh-no-you-did-enn guests were on hour after hour. It was laughable, it was outrageous, it was so ‘90s. (Sorry, Jerry and Maury – it’s getting old.)
Gone are the days of a relatively unknown hosting a talk show. Now celebrities take the stage and try to use their fan base in a daytime platform and cross their fingers it works. And with the anticipated return of Ricki Lake, Katie Couric’s move to daytime and Jeff Probst not telling people “the tribe has spoken”, I was interested in the mix this year.
Lake and Couric started their shows with badly acted intros with Lake having flashbacks of outrageous moments from her previous daytime gab-fest. Couric had former colleague Matt Lauer appear in an unfunny dream sequence. Probst walked in and started the show normally – which was surprisingly refreshing given his past weird entrances at the Survivor reunion shows.
Will any of the three revolutionize the daytime talk show? Will they give us something we’ve never seen before? Or is it going to be the same I-have-weight-problems or help-me-spice-up-my-relationship shows?
Lake, Couric and Dr. Oz all discussed weight-themed issues on Monday. Lake talked with everyday people while Couric interviewed Jessica Simpson. I couldn’t sit through any of them so thankfully the delete button came in handy. As a guy watching it was too womanly and producers need to realize there’s a lot more guys at home than there were 20 years ago.
Probst’s show was not gender specific and could be enjoyed by anybody of any age. Probst featured regular people with incredible stories and had lively interactions like we have seen him start to incorporate on the Survivor reunion shows. I made it through the whole hour, so congrats to Probst.
It will be interesting to see how much celebrity content each of these shows has in the weeks ahead because if there’s anything us regular people like is celebrities interviewing other celebrities pretending they live regular lives like we do.
We reached out for interviews with Couric, Lake and Probst in mid-August with the hopes of featuring them on my syndicated radio shows this month. Couric was a no, Probst’s peeps keep pushing back the timeframe (now October), and Lake’s rep went MIA on Aug. 20.
