The Report on the Colbert Report

Stephen Colbert's remarkable talent is on full display in his new Comedy Central series The Colbert Report. It is a dead-on satire of Bill O' Reily, Chris Matthews and every other talking head with shows like theirs. The first episode laid out the comic premise of the show with a sharp edged wit that stings in large part because Colbert, just as he did non The Daily Show, never cracks a smile. He does not let the audience in on the joke. When one considers how the point of the show is to put on display how idiotic Reilly and his ilk are, that lack of a wink to the audience hammers home the concept that all of those TV personalities are simply acting as well. The show itself may run out of steam, after all he isn't skewering the news he's skewering a certain segment of the television media, but it is still a brilliant parody that draws blood from its victims and should leave any viewer laughing.