Saturday nights with Bill
"Real Time" on Neon offers something no other television show seems to provide
For some reason Kiwi streamer Neon takes the comedy-talk show “Real Time with Bill Maher” express from the USA. It plays (live) on a Friday night on HBO in the States, and goes up on demand here by around 7pm Saturday. Watching it after dinner has become our household ritual, though when I recommend it to people it’s always with lots of caveats - not all of it is great, but the best of it is brilliant. I can’t think of another show so unafraid of unpopular opinions.
(By “unpopular opinions” I don’t mean anti-woke or conservative opinions, though Real Time features both. I’m more interested in opinions that don’t feel right, that even make people angry, but which might turn out to be - sometimes only a few months later - opinions most reasonable people agree with. The Covid lab leak theory was portrayed as something immoral and sinister until it quietly became at worst the second best hypothesis for how the pandemic started; or how about the late-lockdown suggestion that NZ might one day open up for business again? Speaking as a broadcaster, this one was taboo enough that it was difficult even to raise it for discussion.)
But first the caveats.
The show begins with one of the weaker monologues in late night television. Maher has been a working comic for five decades and has a well-resourced writers’ room but he’s a fairly uncharismatic presence and it’s rare you’ll be surprised or impressed by a joke he tells you. Plus, in New Zealand, we only recognise the names of about half the politicians he’s joking about, so it’s a long eight minutes waiting for the first guest interview.
If you’re lucky that first guest will be a good one: this season Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge were both great, I was surprisingly interested in Robert F Kennedy and Robert De Niro, but struggled through William Shatner and Roger Daltrey (news-junkie Real Timers are likely more interested in the WHO than The Who).
Things get good when the panel starts, about 20 minutes into the show, and it’s a credit to the strength of this segment that it makes you forgive Real Time’s other weaknesses (including one more comedy sketch, which inexplicably plays out in the panel half time spot).
It’s become customary in 2024 to judge TV shows based on whether you agree with the opinions they express but Bill Maher - now in his fourth decade running this sort of format - reminds you that, for the most part, nobody is going to die from hearing a view they disagree with. His panelists are a who’s who of the left’s cancelled class but seeing them argue their case in this free-rein format you’re reminded that even if you disagree with their take on a particularly hot issue, it can be useful and even nourishing to have your own views tested from time to time.
As many of the guests I’ve interviewed on radio have observed, when it comes to the current rules of debate, “left vs right” doesn’t really cover it. Bill Maher’s show is more often “left vs left” - or “old left vs new left” if you like, though even that risks trying to repel somebody’s argument by putting them in the “bad guys” category before you’ve even heard what they have to say - just the sort of illiberal trick that self-respecting thinkers try to avoid.
At the end of the panel Maher finishes the show with “New Rules”, a generally much more successful comedy spot which concludes with a provocative editorial on an issue of the day. These editorials don’t always land but they are generally ambitious and persuasive. You can disagree with his conclusions but it’s hard to think of another broadcast TV show where you’ll have to work this hard intellectually to determine your own point of view.
Maher has collected 20 years of these editorials in a new book “What this Comedian Said Will Shock You”, currently a New York Times bestseller. Some of his opinions as expressed in the book are of the sort that would never make it into that newspaper but there are signs that his willingness to critique the left (he is much harder on Republicans, but a liberal making fun of other liberals inevitably stings more) is starting to become accepted, even respected. Recently NYT columnist Maureen Dowd wrote, approvingly:
“He seems to make more news than all of the other night-owl comedians combined, no doubt because he breaks free of comedy’s congealed partisan worldview. Unlike most other political commentators, he does not pander to the left or the right.”
***
I saw Bill Maher’s live stand up show in Vegas once (I also, memorably, ran into him at an LA nightclub) but though I respect his comedy, he’s not my favourite - I find his persona a bit smug, a bit hammy, a bit hard to like. So why do I love watching his show so much?
Because, for me, there’s something even more enjoyable than hearing an opinion I agree with. It’s hearing an opinion of any sort, honestly expressed, in a debate environment where the ultimate goal is to find the best idea, not to attack the credibility of the speaker because we don’t like what they’re saying or, worse, because we suspect they may be a member of the wrong team.
Where I’m reviewing
Queen’s on the 21st floor of the Deloitte building:
“Wow. This is a gobsmackingly great space - a space so magnificent that when you step out of the elevator and look around, you immediately start thinking about who you could bring with you next time.”
Where I reviewed five years ago
Morell in Remuera:
“I would go back to this restaurant if I only had to eat the food, but I truly don’t think I could survive another minute of the banter.”
[This seems a bit harsh reading it back. I generally won’t single out an individual for their service in a review anymore, unless they were particularly good. I don’t mind making gentle fun of them, but I don’t think writing about a guy like this who’s clearly trying as hard as he can would feel quite right to me these days.]
What people are asking
Jesse, a random one for you! We have an industry gathering in Auckland in March next year and I’m scouting for venues. Do you have any knowledge of hotel catering and can you recommend the food anywhere in particular?
Abbey
Hi Abbey good question. I’ve had great experiences at two hotels in particular.