The Joy Behar Show review

Joy Behar, comedian, actress, write and co-host of The View has a new show on CNN Headline News. (HLN) I just saw last night's show. This show is part of HLN news infotainment lineup. While I can do without the prosecutorial tone of Nancy Grace's show , Behar's show is a breath of fresh air on a network that is bordering on catering to ratings. After all, shouldn't HLN be about news and commentary? At least Behar has the intelligence and wit to steer away from the "if they're charged they're guilty" attitude of Nancy Grace and engage in some discussion of current issues.

The show I saw featured diverse group of guests. And what guests. Bill Maher, Al Sharpton, Ann Coulter and Victoria Gotti! While the guests were interesting, Behar needs to be more herself and less Larry King. For Maher, she was a little stiff. And when he made that Polish joke, she could have least groaned. This is a pattern in the show. She doesn't challenge her guests when they say something off the wall. I mean when Victoria Gotti suggested that her father, Mafioso John Gotti, had nothing to do with the disappearance of the man who killed her brother, Behar should have said, "Oh, come on." Though it would be cool to have Gotti on more often, as she has some fascinating views. Maybe even have her do an Italian cooking segment. For Ann Coulter, Behar needs to have facts ready for this right wing nut. Coulter's act is to attack liberals like Behar. If you have the questions, you better have the answer. Standing up to Coulter would increase Behar's credibility. Additonally, Behar when talking about the Palin-Couric interview, she should have cited Palin's horrific answer to the bailout question. This is better than Palin's inability to tell Couric what newspapers she reads.

The show also needs to take advantage of her wit. There needs to be a daily segment with her view on a news story. Since she swings from the left, a great story she could have discussed was the recent view of a blogger on News Max who fantasized about a military coup because of the Obama presidency.

The promise of the show is Joy Behar. She's intelligent, and funny. She did a good job with a panel featuring Ashleigh Banfield. I suggest Banfield to be a regular guest since she had an interesting and nuanced approach to Roman Polanski's legal issues. If they mix Behar's wit and guests, this show could be great. The grade is B.