Entertainment
Samantha Bee's Show Got Picked Up For 2 More Seasons & We Need Her Voice More Than Ever
Good news for people who have come to expect bad news, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee was picked up for two more seasons by TBS, according to Deadline. Yes, the only female late-night host Samantha Bee is sticking around to help you get through President Trump's first term. This two-season pick-up means she won't just be around for the 2018 midterms, but will be making jokes all the way up until the next presidential election in 2020.
TBS made the announcement that Full Frontal would be back for Seasons 3 and 4 on Thursday right before heading to the Turner Networks panel at the Television Critics Association, according to Variety. In a statement, Thom Hinkle, exec VP of original programming, bragged that "no one does political comedy like Full Frontal; a two-season pickup is an obvious decision." It's true, what network wouldn't re-sign the "fastest growing late-night show" for a couple of seasons?
"Sam and her team have been relentlessly incisive in their satire, and the awards recognition and their growing viewership reflect that," Hinkle said, adding that fans can "expect more specials and a lot more blazers.”
According to Variety, Bee was equally as excited to announce that she'd be on the air until 2020, writing in her own statement:
“We were fortunate to start our show in an election year, and I’m so grateful TBS has picked us up for two more seasons which will see us through the 2018 midterms and bring us into the 2020 election season. It’s promising to be a real sh*t show and I am counting on our viewers to coax me out of my panic bunker and get us through it.”
She's joking, most likely. But, it wouldn't be too farfetched to say that Bee has helped many people face the world after the 2016 election by offering a sly, and yes, female take, on the news.
Over the course of her first two seasons, Bee has stood on the side of those people who don't always get a voice in late-night, making her the host we need in the age of #MeToo. She's roasted Fyre Festival and Trump with the same voracity. But, it's not just satire; Bee puts on her reporter's hat to take a closer look at the nationwide rape kit backlog and show why no one should be afraid of Syrian refugees. With her Not The White House Correspondents Dinner special, she showed that she could be a thorn in the president's side. Not to mention, win an Outstanding Writing Emmy while doing it.
And there's a lot more to look forward to, according to the boss over at TBS. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter from earlier this month, Kevin Reilly, the president of TBS and TNT, said that fans "can anticipate more specials. And we're almost ready to roll out a lot more digital content — not one-off segments but a steady pulse of content between the weekly shows."
Full Frontal is currently on hiatus until Feb. 7, but the show's correspondents are on the Full Frontal Apology Race, where they're traveling the globe for the next two weeks apologizing for things Trump has said and done.
You can actually suggest where you'd like them to go and who you'd like them to apologize to by tweeting the hashtag #ApologyRace and @FullFrontalSamB. Just like the Amazing Race, there will be one winner who does the best apologizing and on Jan. 24, you'll find out who that is.
What should really excite fans is that Bee is the driving force behind her show. "Sam has carte blanche to do whatever she wants and has from day one," Reilly told THR. Who runs Full Frontal? Well, Bee, of course, and she'll be doing it at least as long as Trump. Though, at the end of this run, hopefully fans will only be asking Bee for four more years.