Gunde

To be fair most people don't know what the fuck to do about anything right now.
Do we move on and let virus be virus?
Do we lockdown and risk further recession?
What about when the inevitable second round comes?
What about next year?
Symptoms, treatment, spread, mutation, variants, immune system. All still with huge question marks. We basically still now fuck all about this virus. That's the scary part.

cultshock

Yeah, I have to agree with this. Leno was a great stand up comic pre-Tonight Show, but I was never a fan of his hosting job on that show. And Letterman on Late Night was an absolute beast (best late night show ever!), but he got so watered down once he moved to CBS. I always wonder how much more or less watered down he would have been if he had gotten the Tonight Show gig.

Yeah, he's been getting a bit wacky and the current format of the show (as necessary as it may be) is doing him no favors at all. Compare him to John Oliver, who's handled the changed format on his show wonderfully (I realize that his show his different than Maher's, with no guests, etc.)

philo

Don't forget Bill also had Charlie Sheen and his quack "doctor" on the show who claimed he cured HIV with goats milk.

Daytripper

Al Franken's appearance on Maher last night was so damn uncomfortable to watch. Sure, every story and joke he told tanked. Badly. But Bill was a complete dick to him. I'd be furious if I were Franken and would never come back. Bill continued to be his more than usual cranky self the rest of the show with his other guests.

Eric F

I gave up on this show earlier this year. I just can't watch it anymore.

I'm glad Jon Stewart is coming back.

story

That's a bummer to hear. Franken used to have a "Strange Bedfellows" segment with him and Arianna Huffington on Politically Incorrect back in the day. I think he did some additional writing for the show back then, too.

Shannon Nutt

Me too. I watched a couple after the pandemic started, and just can't take his self-righteous attitude (which, honestly, is more often that not wrong). He's always been this way, but he used to treat guests with much more respect/be much more open to an opposing point of view. Now he's just an ass.

Daytripper

Agree. Increasingly he just interrupts his guests and just tells them they are wrong. I'm also getting tired of his smugness. During his "New Rules" segment when he delivers a line and looks around afterwards at everyone like "Wasn't that funny/clever?". Ugh. But this Franken interview was my last straw.

Josh-da-man

I only caught the last half of the Franken interview. I thought it seemed really weird and uncomfortable. I need to catch the whole thing later this week.

cultshock

It looked to me like Franken was under the influence of some substance (or shit, had a stroke!). He seemed like he was struggling to collect his thoughts or string sentences together. I don't think Maher was being a dick, he just looked uncomfortable and was trying to somehow get through the segment before it completely fell apart. That was very bizarre.

Daytripper

Maher absolutely was being a dick to Franken. He sat there and mocked everything he was saying. Which was, yes, awkward and strange. I didn't even consider that Franken could have been drunk. Maybe he was. Or maybe he was just having an off night. But Bill is the host. And he was completely unprofessional and should have handled that better.

cultshock

We'll just have to agree to disagree. There was something really wrong with Franken's behavior (did you know what the fuck he was even going on about? I sure didn't, it was near incoherent. And I've been a Franken fan for years and seen him interviewed many times) and it caught Maher off guard and he struggled to carry the segment forward, which is his job (perhaps if anything, being dickish is a defense mechanism for him). I'm not saying that Maher never acts like a dick to his guests, of course he does, but IMO that wasn't the main issue here. But hey, if this was the "last straw" for you, that's your call, I'm certainly not going to tell you that you should give him another chance.

Troy Stiffler

I'll have to watch again. I thought the interview was pretty normal.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, I was kind of thinking "stroke," but didn't want to bring up -- though cultshock did.

Like I said, I only saw half of the interview, but he didn't seem well. Drunk? Medicated? In pain? Really, really tired? It was like he couldn't concentrate and was having difficulty articulating himself.

TheAllPurposeNothing

Just seemed like an average Real Time interview. Didn't notice anything off about Franken. He wanted to be funny with some absurd humor and Maher wanted to be serious. Admittedly the jokes didn't really land (like Graham and the gravy boat), but they can't all be winners.

Gunde

Bill loves Franken, and always has. To me it seemed like he was just really taken aback by him acting so weird and not like his usual smart, composed self.
I don't know what the fuck the dude was on, but it definitely wasn't the same Franken we are used to seeing ... Bill seemed disappointed and frustrated, and could maybe have handled it better.
I'm still watching.

Decker

That was my take as well. Bill was taken aback and frustrated with Al. Didn't seem too making or disrespectful.

Paff

I gave up on Maher earlier this year, but I watched last night as I wanted to see how he'd respond after the election.

I did not make a mistake in deleting him from my DVR before, and won't be adding his show back even with a new president in place. That garbage about Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani seemed rushed and last-minute, and hardly fitting given the historic nature of the election this past week. That's one you do on a slow news week, which this clearly was not.

John Oliver was amazing and to-the-point last week pre-election, and I expect the same from him on Sunday night. Bill Maher is just a waste of an hour out of my week now.

Eric F

Difference is Maher is a bigot, Oliver isn't.

Paff

I haven't decided if I'll tune in this week for a hate watch.

See, Maher is going to be absolutely insufferable (more than usual) with "I told you so"s about Trump refusing to concede. He's gonna sprain his shoulder patting himself on the back for this one. I guarantee it.

Gunde

Yeah, but ... he'll be right. He has mentioned it many time, and every single guest has said "Oh, of course he'll leave"

cultshock

Exactly, how dare he be right about that.

The interview with the Trump lawyer was just an exercise in frustration, I swear they are like pod people, you aren't going to manage to have a meaningful conversation with people like that.

funkyryno

I agree. That interview was hard to watch. I wasn't sure how much she was outright lying or just completely divorced from reality. Likely a combination of both.

mike7162

Maher literally went apoplectic debating that Stepford Lawyer, and in the same episode blames Democrats for not getting more votes.The only thing this election proved is how far off the rails the right is.

Norm de Plume

Haha, I just saw a mulleted Maher in a typically schlocky 30-year-old "Murder She Wrote" episode involving witches and ghosts. He emoted alongside Roddy MacDowell and burned down a barn. Who knew?