Comedy Central's The Daily Show has featured a number of correspondents who went on to star in hit talk shows of their own, including Stephen Colbert with The Late Show, John Oliver with Last Week Tonight, and Samantha Bee with Full Frontal. Now another correspondent has landed a hosting gig, and it will take her to an entirely different outlet. Michelle Wolf has signed a deal for a weekly Netflix talk show.
Michelle Wolf's new show does not yet have a title, but it promises to be a departure from her work on The Daily Show. In fact, it will diverge from the seriousness that has taken over late night comedy in recent years, and the focus will not be on politics. Instead, the focus will be on just about everything else. Wolf will make fun of anyone and anything, and she'll only delve into politics if she can make it funny, presumably in a way that sets it apart from shows like The Late Show and Last Week Tonight. According to Wolf herself, the jokes will be "the types of jokes my former bosses would tell me we couldn't do on TV."
The types of jokes that can't be done on TV indicate that Michelle Wolf will take full advantage of the freedom of Netflix. The streaming service doesn't limit shows on language or nudity the way broadcast and even non-premium cable channels do, although we can probably rule out any nudity. Wolf will undoubtedly draw from her past experiences with talk shows, given that she contributed both to Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
The new show will pack a big comedic punch behind the scenes. Michelle Wolf is on board as executive producer as well as host, and the two showrunners have a lot of comedy experience as well. The showrunners will be Dan Powell of Inside Amy Schumer and Christine Nangle of The Mick. It's not entirely clear at this point if the Netflix project means Michelle Wolf won't be able to return to The Daily Show. Her comment about her "former bosses" may be a clue that she's departing the Comedy Central series entirely and sooner rather than later.
It should be interesting to see Michelle Wolf's take on a weekly Netflix show. Until relatively recently, Netflix only debuted TV seasons by releasing full batches of episodes at once, which was great for binge-watchers but prevented series from getting very topical. The weekly format will prevent viewers from getting to binge their way through a dozen episodes at a time; it should allow Wolf to keep her commentary current. David Letterman and Joel McHale also landed Netflix gigs set to air at intervals.
While no premiere date has been set at this point, Netflix has announced that the show will hit the web later in 2018. For what you can stream in the meantime, check out our 2018 Netflix premiere schedule. If streaming isn't always your style, swing by our 2018 midseason premiere guide.
