Monday night was the much anticipated return of comically egotistical, liberal blowhard Keith Olbermann. After much ballyhoo earlier this year that left MSNBC’s shouting mouthpiece out of a job amid copious rumors about campaign donations and other Gestapo tactics from the prolific sportscaster — now that he’s returned to his original time slot, but with a new home sponsored by none other than internet and manbearpig founder, Al Gore — was his return everything you hoped for?
Known mostly for its spectacular Peabody Award winning documentary series Vanguard and other filler fluff like Infomania, and Rotten Tomatoes Television, (which it looks like they’ve done away with), Current TV is striving to be more than that little channel you watched one weekend six months ago, but now can’t find again. It appears to be their fervent hope that signing on Keith Olbermann will give them the gravitas and stature that everyone was looking for with regard to a network run by former political darling Al Gore. Al’s putting a lot of chips in with Olbermann, will it pan out?
Let’s see what his maiden voyage has wrought.
With regard to the set and feel of Current TV’s Countdown — it was exactly the same show he left burning in a heap of self righteousness at MSNBC. And Olbermann was as ranty and exasperated as ever. Literally, like no time at all had passed. What you can see, though, is the effort Current TV is putting in to make this show its anchor, its flagship, and its ratings candy. As far as Current is concerned it looks as if no expense was spared creating this facsimile to MSNBC’s Countdown offering. The production value alone tops most of what Current has produced in the last year. And we gather that Olbermann is no mild-mannered task master. He was assured he’d have the exact same show and it looks like the network delivered. I imagine a bunch of Generation Y kids running around with their shaggy hair, Converse sneakers, and ripped jeans working Olbermann’s teleprompter, cueing his litany of oddball graphics, and perfecting that picture-in-picture thing he loves when interviewing contributors. If there were any 4:20 jokes on this set it had more to do with how many sheets of blank paper Olbermann would throw at the camera by the end of the night.
First up, Olbermann launches head on into a diatribe about Libya after greeting us with, “As I was saying…” (heh, cute.) he cites the Libyan condemnation of the U.S. (naturally) and the general role of Congress in war-making. And then his first guest of this new opus shows up to discuss constitutional issues and it’s….Michael Moore. I was a little disappointed. I’m not a huge M. Moore fan. Something about him has always seemed just slightly egregious and opportunistic, but hey, you know, whatever. He likes to bash President Bush, and that’s always a good reason to appear on Keith Olbermann’s show, right?
We’re jazzing along now after a few chuckles with Moore. Onward to the Special Comment section. Really? So soon? The first half hour isn’t even up. It’s almost like he couldn’t wait. Like he realizes that the world has been without his carbon dioxide for six months and similar to most other cataclysmic terraforming events, we’ve all evolved into beings who’ve forgotten how to scoff at his filibuster. The comment is full of everybody bashing including the malfeasance of Republicans in conjunction with the timidity of Democrats! Nobody gets an Olbermann cookie today expect maybe Harriet Beecher Stowe who provided Olbermann’s first quote of the new Countdown…one hundred and fifteen years after her death.
We then get commentary on Clarence Thomas and his wife’s scandal-lite contributions thing that isn’t getting much play in the news, but with the Power of Grayskull will drum up some satisfying probes, or at least further New York Times commentary, based on Olbermann’s uncovering of the rampant problem of Supreme Court Justices bending the rules. I do question though…if you’re a Supreme Court Justice found doing something not so favorable do you sit down amongst all the other justices so they can 1) tell you how naughty you’ve been and 2) put whoopee cushions under your robe?
We’re rolling now! He then does this thing called Time Marches On which took me a minute to figure out was the old Oddball segment. But I didn’t really find all these things that odd or timely, not really. Kids dancing to a Microsoft game, Debbie Reynolds’ old timey dress auction, and Japanese robots. Not scintillating stuff. This is a section I’d say Olbermann needs to work on if he wants to keep it.
The other thing I’d dare say needs to vacate Olbermann’s schtick is that weird, squeaky, high-pitched voice thing he does we assume is supposed to be some sort of impersonation. Mostly though it just sounds like an elongated kick in the gonads. Has he polled his viewers on this voice thing? Because I’d have to tell him emphatically, “Stop doing that because it makes me want to punch your chin.” I can’t be alone in this, right? I’m sure there are more of us out there.
We come then to Worst Persons. Didn’t he say he was going to stop this? Okay, well, whatever, new show, new set, and there are indeed worst people in the world. Carry on.
Sarah Palin – Yes, always.
FoxNews – Yes, definitely.
“I’m An Educated Person” Train Rider – Sure, she’s an asshole, but worst person in the world? No.
Now we get to the comically good and weird stuff. Olbermann calls the current GOP group of candidates a Republican Cult, and I don’t disagree, but then he calls on Daily Kos publisher, Markos Moulitsas, to give his opinion…AND to bash MSNBC. It was almost poetic. “Oh, none of those GOP idiots have a shot at the White House, and all the really serious candidates including Jeb Bush are going to wait until 2016 to run…and by the way Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC’s Morning Joe is a big Poopy-Head who can’t take a joke, so fuck him, fuck MSNBC, fuck everyone who ever said MSNBC was cool and awesome. It’s not! They got rid of me and Keith so they’re losers! Just Big Poopy Losers! Here, take that Joe Scarborough, bite me. See you on Twitter!” while Olbermann cackles along like he and Moulitsa didn’t plan this in the boys locker room. So in 58 minutes the first Countdown went from mildly informative, to marginally entertaining, and then finally into full-on shitastical shitshow. Sensational.
Keith Olbermann, good to have ya back, buddy.
