Change for the Worse

Anyone else think the new Daily Show set sucks?

I guess they’re trying to make it look more “cable news program” than “talk show,” but they’ve pretty much missed on all counts. Sure, no couch means it doesn’t resemble Leno or Letterman — which may be fine for your “newsmaker” guests, but will seriously undermine your celebrity interviews. Sure, those cool video screens are nice (Stewart can finally get his hands in front of the on-screen graphics), but the need to constantly have something on those screens becomes a nausea-inducing distraction (they have got to lose that annoying “Daily Show” text continually expanding right behind his head). And sure, you’ve got a spiffy new desk, but the irritatingly symmetrical layout cuts your visual composition options to... well, pretty much nothing.

I know that things get old after a while, but somebody should have called Thom Filicia before they moved into their new space.

(On the plus side, note that the little globe to the left of the new “lower third” graphics spins vertically; now that’s amusing.)

Speaking of The Daily Show, I was recently surfing for critiques to determine whether or not I should pick up the Indecision 2004 disc set. (Yeah, yeah, I know I probably will anyway, but it doesn’t hurt to have some critical justification for my purchase.) I found this story particularly illuminating. Not because of the meat of the story, but because of a little throwaway line down toward the bottom of the article.

Apparently, Comedy Central is working on a Patton Oswalt DVD. Now that one I’ll be preordering as soon as it’s announced.