What Are the Reviews for the Megan Kelly Show
Review: NBC'due south 'Megyn Kelly Today' Isn't Partisan, but It's Awkward
America, Megyn Kelly would like yous to know that she's "kind of done with politics now."
That declaration is the funniest role of "Megyn Kelly Today." After all, Ms. Kelly'southward work covering politics on Fox News is a big reason she's hosting a forenoon show on NBC — where, just months ago, she was interviewing Vladimir V. Putin and the "InfoWars" conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in prime fourth dimension. Mayhap she'due south simply done with politics earlier noon.
But besides, the kickoff week of "Megyn Kelly Today" most closely resembled a familiar political ritual: an bad-mannered rebranding campaign by handlers trying to humanize their candidate.
Ms. Kelly's opening shows were filled with photo-op moments that screamed, "I am a relatable person who enjoys human fun!" She flipped eggs in an omelet pan, like a political leader tossing flapjacks at an Iowa fair. She danced with "Today" show fans. She petted a dog. She was surprised by her colleagues with a cart of mimosas. "O.M.Thou.," she said, as if reading an eye nautical chart.
Much similar a nominee'southward bio reel at a convention, the testify brought out personal history and validators' testimony. She reminisced near her father, who died when she was a teenager. Family members described her, in the words of her stepsister, Liza Kirwan, equally "a fun-loving, intelligent crazy person."
She might be. We can't know Ms. Kelly's private self, just the one she projects on TV. On Fox, the old lawyer had a crisp, courtroom manner, and her tenacious debate questioning drew sexist attacks from Donald J. Trump. On NBC daytime, she seems as if she learned to appoint an audience by reading a briefing volume.
This has involved a lot of telling rather than showing. She told u.s.a. how much she loves "Will & Grace" (i of many NBC properties plugged on the show) and how much she hates seeing "perfect" models on magazine covers at the supermarket "just as I'm loading up with a bunch of Ben & Jerry's." Before a segment nigh the babies of drug-addicted mothers, she conveyed the depth of its emotion by saying, "Let me tell you: tears."
She likewise promised a politics-free zone, to the point of strangely downplaying the stridently anti-Trump tone of the "Will & Grace" premiere in front of the show's own cast.
The idea that Tv set fans simply desire an escape from partisan fighting is intuitive, but information technology'south not necessarily borne out by evidence. Jimmy Kimmel, the more often than not apolitical late-night host, just took a rare pb in the ratings after he went on the health intendance warpath. Viewers may be ill of politics in the Trump era, merely that doesn't mean they're tired of it.
And then two days in a row, studio audience members asked Ms. Kelly what she thought of North.F.Fifty. players kneeling to protestation racism during the national anthem. And two days in a row, she gave the same noncommittal answer, almost verbatim: "Those players have every right to have a knee, and those who object to it have every right to say they object." In determination: "Get The states!" (Welcome to 2017, when Miss Texas has a stronger take than a former Play a trick on host.)
Ms. Kelly's can't-we-all-get-along stance is pretty rich, considering that she made her proper name in the trenches of Fox News's civilisation war, insisting in a 2013 segment that Jesus and Santa Claus were white. This calendar week, she told a gay "Will & Grace" fan from the audition that "the gay thing'due south gonna piece of work out" for him, after which the sitcom's co-star Debra Messing said she regretted having appeared on the show.
Simply if we take Ms. Kelly as sincere, this nonetheless ways the unabridged statement for her show is that she's burned out on the politics thing and needs a break. That'south fine for her, and maybe a wise self-intendance decision. Simply information technology does not create an obligation on the audition'south part.
With "Megyn Kelly Today" divers mainly as what it isn't, what's left is an odd hybrid of morning time escape and nightly newsmagazine. Ms. Kelly seemed more at home in a Fri segment on O. J. Simpson'due south impending release from prison than in an interview with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, derailed by her tape-scratch of a question to Ms. Fonda about cosmetic surgery.
Ms. Kelly was most animated and passionate on the challenges for women in the piece of work force. She brash young women to piece of work difficult and uncomplainingly merely added, "You've got to know where to draw the line if someone'due south behaving inappropriately." It was hard non to recall that she was i of several women whose complaints of sexual harassment helped oust the Fox News chief executive, Roger Ailes.
She besides showed flashes of a dry, deadpan humor. But "Megyn Kelly Today" is following a daytime template of escape, uplift and inspiration in which information technology doesn't fit.
This leaves Ms. Kelly talking a lot about "joy," a word, as my colleague John Koblin noted in a feature about her, she'south specially addicted of. In her opening speech communication, she vowed to accept "more than joy in my life"; in an interview with the convicted killer Lyle Menendez (the subject field of a new NBC "Law & Order" series) she asked if he has any joy in his.
"Joy" has become one of those self-actualization words that takes everyday emotion — happiness, fun, love — and both elevates and guts it, turning it into an achievement, an accreditation, something you might give a TED Talk most. In that sense, "Megyn Kelly Today" is full of joy. It's simply not enjoyable.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/01/arts/television/megyn-kelly-today-review-nbc.html
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