BET’s The Rundown with Robin Thede carves out a unique spot in the late-night TV land

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https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/...ede-bet-review

Every time I start to get overwhelmed by the number of late night shows on TV, I remind myself that we’re experiencing an unprecedented tidal wave of news. We might as well have a variety of options when turning to a comedian for sharp commentary on it all, and now, BET is making a smart bet that people will want to do exactly that with The Rundown’s Robin Thede.

The former head writer for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, Thede knows the rhythms of late night well — so well that she’s perfectly comfortable twisting them just enough to suit her needs and singular voice.

As many have noted, Thede is the only black woman on TV hosting a show like this at all; as Thede herself noted to The Hollywood Reporter, there’s no show like this made with a primarily black audience like BET’s in mind, either.

“In creating my own show, we felt there was a void in the space where black people are spoken to in late-night comedy directly,” Thede told THR. “There is no show that is created to speak directly to black people. Trevor Noah does a great job but that show is for Comedy Central’s audience and we have BET’s audience.”

That doesn’t mean that Thede is about to turn away any non-black viewers who want to hear what she has to say. But it does mean that The Rundown occupies a unique space in late night, and a long overdue one at that. And if the show continues to follow the example of its confident first episode, that space is in good hands.

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https://www.avclub.com/robin-thedes-...mak-1819430950

Thede transitioned seamlessly from being head writer on Larry Wilmore's The Nightly Show 14 months ago to helming her own talk show on Thursday night, becoming the first black woman in late-night since 2011. “Her reactions are sharp and gif-able,” says Ashley Ray-Harris. “The segments are compact and informational; ready to be consumed in your news feed the next day. Instead of feeling like a desperate reach at relevance, it feels realistic. Thede knows that’s exactly where her audience is going to see this content; not on a TV with cable with commercials.

ALSO:

Thede: “At BET, we have the luxury of not having to talk about Trump. Black people already know he’s bad”
Thede says “I can just speak how I speak” on BET, while we had to over-explain to a majority-white audience on Comedy Central

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Robin Thede’s The Rundown is “Black Twitter personified within the late-night mold”
The former head writer on Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show “takes from that familiar, white male–dominated genre and serves it up through a biting, unmistakably black lens” on her weekly BET show, says Aisha Harris. She points to one segment where Thede took on the topic of black Trump supporters with the seriousness of John Oliver and Samantha Bee.