Review: David Spade's "Lights Out"

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Steve Timko

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Aug 2, 2019, 11:06:05 PM8/2/19
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David Spade’s “Lights Out” talk show finished its first week. It follows “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. I’m a Spade fan so I enjoyed the show. I liked it better than Jordan Klepper’s show in that spot, although not as much as Larry Wilmore’s show. The conceit of the show is that it stays away from political humor.

Turns out I’m in the minority. The how has averaged 270,000 same-day viewers its first week and is losing more than half of the “The Daily Show” audience.

I think the best description of the show was by Thursday night guest Al Madrigal, who said it was like Chelsea Handler’s talk show but with less testosterone.  The show seemed to rise or fall on the quality of guests, mostly comedians, Spade has on the show. The first night included Neal Brennan and Whitney Cummings and both did a great job, especially breaking Spade’s balls. The second night the comedians were Theo Von (every time I hear that name I think of an Elmore Leonard villain), Jen Kirkman and Candice Thompson. Von’s jabs were less successful. Kirkman did a call back on the same joke until she ran it into the ground. The audience was silent. The third night was Jim Jefferies, Kaley Cuoco and Steve Byrne. It picked up again. Cuoco was game. They did a long segment where Spade pretended to give directions to “Bachelorette” contestants that had laughs and also fell flat. The last episode of the week included Madrigal, Sarah Tiana and Dana Carvey. Carvey was trying hard to get his humor untracked and the jokes fell flat. Madrigal and Tiana were dismissed for the final segment as Spade and Carvey talked one-on-one, but it was not insightful and not funny.

Spade seems to be working out the kinks. This is a weak time of year for viewers, so maybe by fall he will have the show running more smoothly. As I said before, I’m a fan of Spade, but I also know a little bit of David Spade goes a long way for a lot of people.

Jon Delfin

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Aug 2, 2019, 11:39:57 PM8/2/19
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"Spade seems to be working out the kinks"? You're a very generous viewer.

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PGage

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Aug 3, 2019, 3:22:05 PM8/3/19
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I think we knew you were in the minority when you confessed to being a Spade fan...

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Kevin M.

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Aug 3, 2019, 3:27:20 PM8/3/19
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As with most SNL cast members from the 80s and 90s, a little goes a long way. I haven’t seen Spades new show, and I’m ok not ever seeing it 

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PGage

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Aug 15, 2019, 12:01:59 AM8/15/19
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I feel honor bound, after my snarky comment about Spade (and, I guess, Steve) to confess that I have now watched 3 or 4 of these shows and did not hate all of them. As Steve said, a lot depends on the comics on the show, and what you think of Spade. With 3 comics per night I’m not sure they can keep doing as well as they have (maybe they will do repeats), but I have been pretty impressed so far (even penalizing him heavily for the pity booking of his old friend Dennis Miller last night).

My problem with the show is my fundamental problem with Spade; his snarky persona can only really be funny if, underneath all of it, he is knowingly making fun of himself. But he isn’t. Yes, he sometimes does put himself down, but only by employing the same superficial yardstick to judge himself and admitting he falls short. But he doesn’t bring the bit around to the point of exploding the superficial metric itself, and the culture based on it. It’s like watching the Old Colbert character and periodically realizing the actor really does endorse nativistic, anti-intellectual values. The jokes, even when funny, would start to make you sick. But in the current age a show that does not engage in political humor is something of a relief. 

Steve Timko

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Sep 24, 2019, 12:49:26 PM9/24/19
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This latest episode might be the best yet. The guests are Maria Bamford, Joel McHale and Erik Griffen.



He takes people with no stand-up comedy experience and puts them on the stage at Comedy Store and he and another comedian feed them jokes. Last night's was the SEAL team member who killed bin Laden. It was funny.

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Jon Delfin

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Sep 24, 2019, 1:56:17 PM9/24/19
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Life is too short to bother with shows that are only sometimes worthwhile.

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PGage

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Sep 24, 2019, 6:27:17 PM9/24/19
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I may be a little more willing to spin the wheel, but I also was going to say the hit rate on this show is so low it is hardly worth it. The last episode I watched was just 2 white guys (plus an awkward Spade) being morally outraged about SNL firing the racist comic because, dammit, white guys have a God given right to be racist 

Steve Timko

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Nov 14, 2019, 6:30:09 PM11/14/19
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I think Spade is finally hitting his stride. His monologues have been sharper the last few qwwka. He's gotten rid of the opening comedy bit where he holds a cell phone vertically on something and makes jokes. The guests are working together better.
Last night's show was notable for two reasons. One is that Chris Hardwick was one of the panelists. Hardwick seems to have disappeared after his ex-girlfriend made the allegations against him. He was as funny as I remember him and I was happy to see him again. It was in his former time slot, which Spade oddly did not acknowledge on the show.
The second was for a great 5-minute standup bit by Rachel Mac. How well known of a comedian is she? She has almost 1,800 followers on Instagram. A tight five doesn't make a comedy star, but I love being introduced to great comedy talent this way. Check it out if you have a minute.

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Kevin M.

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Nov 14, 2019, 6:39:25 PM11/14/19
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Qwwka = what Fozzie Bear would say if he was a duck 

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Dave Sikula

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Nov 15, 2019, 4:36:26 AM11/15/19
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I dunno. Every time I see his mug and hear that nasal whine on the promos that air on TDS (and let me say that I find that show's been in something of a decline the last year or so), I cringe and am again baffled by the people who look back on the SNL era of Sandler, Spade, and Farley as a Golden Age of Comedy.

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Steve Timko

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Dec 3, 2019, 3:45:42 PM12/3/19
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The latest episode has three former "Weekend Update" hosts in studio and one by video. All in all a good show. The funniest Dennis Miller has been in a while.  Always great to see Norm Macdonald. Kevin Nealon was predictable.
Spade tells a joke that is sure to set off Phineas. I would say it's worse than Leno's Korean dog joke.

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PGage

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Dec 3, 2019, 11:18:48 PM12/3/19
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Randomly, I saw this (first episode of the show I have seen in more than a month). I don’t know that I actually am the canary to use to detect racist jokes, but  don’t think Spade’s joke (which included a reference to a technology to tell the billion Chinese people apart from each other) was particularly offensive, and certainly not in the same category as Leno’s. OTOH, I found the three WU hosts (4 actually, counting a brief remote) fairly unimpressive, and a good reminder why I lost interest in the show. I like the idea of peer comics riffing and dumping on each other, but not the idea of hacks not so subtly kissing each other’s ass.

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