Are you ready for more of Comedy Central’s signature brand of witty commentary? Well get ready for The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore. No, wait, the former Daily Show correspondent’s new series will actually be going by a different name now, and you can find it under the revised title The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore starting Monday, January 19, 2015. Something familiar about that name.
As you might have already guessed, there was a little bit of backpedaling when it came to having a show on the air called The Minority Report. While it was fine at the time when the comedic news series was first announced, it got a little sketchier after Fox put into development a TV version of Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would have mistaken the two for each other, but I guess the point is to be as distinct as possible. And I’m fairly certain everything on Wilmore’s show is going to feel fresher than the Minority Report series, though I’m hoping the latter is worth a damn.
Even without the film as a comparison point, Wilmore told the New York Times that the name change is probably a positive one anyway, as not to not muffle what its purpose is.
It was never intended to be a show only about minorities. It’s a show about underdogs, and that happens in a lot of forms, whether it’s race, gender or whatever.”
But what about the people who now think the show will only be about “nights?” The Nightly Show will fit into the slot between The Daily Show and @Midnight, so it makes a certain amount of literal sense that the name was changed to what it is. The Colbert Report just didn’t refer to itself in the proper time-related manner, which is probably the real reason why it’s ending, and Colbert’s Late Show takeover is just a sham.
If you’re looking to get a good taste of what the incredibly intelligent Larry Wilmore is like behind the scenes, take a listen to his trip into Marc Maron’s mindscape on an episode of WTF with Marc Maron.
So don’t forget to tune into The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore on Comedy Central on Monday, January 19, at 11:30 p.m. ET. Can we expect 2016 to introduce The Morning Show and The Just After Brunch Show?
