#late night snack

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Late Night Snack with Andrew Slack - First Episode Taping (TV Review)


I give BTV a lot of credit.  Getting something accomplished at this University is always a chore, and bringing a television station online is an overwhelming task anywhere.  But what is a station without programming?  Last year saw the premier of insipid melodramady “Mod 5,” a seeming pastiche of cliches and rejected “Melrose Place” scripts set in the world’s best housing this side of the projects (those aforementioned projects being East Quad, naturally.)  That groan you heard was really a collective “Come on guys, you can do better than that!”

And so after a semester of text messages and dead air, they have.  The coming year will see the debut of “Late Night Snack with Andrew Slack,” an ambitious and incredibly promising take on the Leno / Letterman formula.  I had the pleasure of attending the first episode’s taping as a member of the studio audience, and if the energy in the room carries over to the small screen, viewers are in for a treat.

The heart of the show Slack ‘02 himself, a magnetic performer whose interviewing skills are as of yet endearingly unaccomplished.  While he pulls no punches (the opening episode includes a musical number bashing the Republican right), his almost-bashful naivete and gentle deference to his interviewees (Professors Robert Reich and Andrew Swensen in episode one) gives the whole show a warm fuzziness.

“Late Night Snack” breaks out of the standard late-nite formula when it comes to content.  Slack gladly displays his deep commitment to liberal ideals, and delves into the deep meaningful questions in a way that would never be found on network television (Slack and Reich discussing solutions to the widening rich-poor gap; Slack and Swensen looking for instances of heaven in everyday life).  Even the humor is decidedly highbrow – where  else could you see an interview interrupted by a nefarious Dostoyevski-impersonator?  

All in all, the taping went off well, with only a few minor hitches.  “I was SO pleased with it,” said Slack.  “[The show] will help build more community for the school.  [Brandeis is] in an identity crisis.  We don’t know if we’re Jewish or secular, if we want to be a state sponsored party school, an academic institution that ignores social life or an alternative school with leftist ideals.  We need to be a community."  It sounds like strong sentiments for a television show, but this kind of vision seems to be underlying in every aspect of the program.  

According to creator and executive producer Scott Josephson '00, Brandeis can expect five episodes to air over the next semester.  "Look for some crazy publicity stunts."  Or as Slack put it, ”[we’re] open to everything, anything goes.“  And if the first episode is any evidence, that’s an exciting proposition.

originally written 11/20/99

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