If you think late-night television is in a dark place now, wait until you see what The Comedy Hour has in store. The upcoming dark satire takes the familiar look of late-night comedy and sets it against a country on the verge of collapse.
The film, from Scythia Films (The Apprentice) and God’s Country producers Halee Bernard and Julian Higgins, marks the feature film debut of director Colby Day. The Comedy Hour imagines a not-so-distant future America plagued by famine, fire, and disease. But despite the growing dystopia, the show must go on.
Tim Heidecker will star as Jimmy, a late-night talk show host struggling to keep his program alive amid national disaster. Ratings are down and the network’s solution isn’t to cancel him, but instead pair Jimmy with a robot co-host. America instantly falls in love with the robot and leave Jimmy playing second chair. Tatiana Maslany joins the cast as Priya, Jimmy’s longtime producer and a corporate climber.
The Comedy Hour finds itself being much more topical than it intended. Scythia Films’ President Daniel Bekerman said "topical relevance is coincidental but welcome" (via Deadline).
While America isn't exactly on the brink of collapse, enough people are raising the alarm that we're heading in that direction. And surprisingly, late-night TV has played a major role in some of the biggest political stories over the past year.
CBS’s cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert left viewers questioning whether political comedy still has a place on network television. ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel over his comments about right-wing personality Charlie Kirk only added to the sense that late-night is under attack. Even President Donald Trump’s repeated outbursts about late-night have turned what used to be light entertainment into political battlegrounds.
And even the robot angle of The Comedy Hour has some late-night TV precedent. Fans will never forget Geoff Peterson, the robotic sidekick of Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show. The difference is that Ferguson and his staff controlled Geoff, while it sounds like Heidecker's character will be faced with an AI beyond his control.
Maslany, for her part, has already proven she’s not afraid to get involved in late-night politic. When Kimmel was suspended, she publicly backed him and even encouraged fans to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions. It was a little shocking considering the streamer is home to her Marvel series She-Hulk. Perhaps her character will be in a similar spot in The Comedy Hour, where corporate mandates and personal opinions clash.
No release date has been set for The Comedy Hour. Hopefully, it remains a work of science-fiction by the time it comes out.