She already has two shows on in primetime, but Whitney Cummings, in a desire to get back to something close to standup, and to fulfill a longheld dream, she got a talk show.“Love You, Mean It with Whitney Cummings,” which premiered Wednesday on E!, where her friend Chelsea Handler (who was not as lucky in the sitcom world) helped her and even gave up her own new studio for it.
It’s a weekly show, which kind of speeds through its half hour. As is common in a first show, Whitney sped through her monologue, spoke too fast and was quick to compartmentalize what she planned to do. “Insta-grammar” purports to tell the real meaning behind the photos that celebrities post to Instagram; “Just Stop” her version of Bill Maher’s “New Rules.” She had a similar segment at the end of the show, using a more newfangled name: “Unsubscribe.”
Like a lot of such shows she had a sidekick meant to be a security blanket, font of information and producer of his own segment. In her case, it’s Julian McCullouch, who did a field piece trying to find a new boyfriend for the host (he failed).
She had to have a real guest, she felt, so she had Mindy Kahling over to sit down, and when Kaling started quizzing her she accused her of taking over the show.
Like Handler, she also has a panel of comics come on to comment on pop culture things, this time based on clips from Oprah’s “My Favorite Things” and two commercials.
A weekly talk show doesn’t have the familiarity of a nightly show; like the shows of Russel Brand or W. Kamau Bell on FX, there’s just too much to squeeze in; too much of a compulsion to speed things up and rush along. Once she has a moment to breathe (or gets more time), she’ll be fine.