In his two tours of duty with ESPN, Stephen A. Smith has made it abundantly clear that he thinks, and sounds, like he's the reincarnation of the late Howard Cosell, except that Cosell, at least, had class & dignity. Smith leaves that at home when he goes to work.
Some genius thought it'd be a good idea if Smith could parlay his communicative skills into being a talk show host. As if annoying America 5 mornings a week on First Take wasn't bad enough, ESPN gave Smith a primetime forum in the form of Quite Frankly which bowed in 2005, and was cancelled in January 2007 after less than 18 months.
As a talk show host, Smith took his cues from Arsenio Hall in fawning over some of his guests, such as, for example, Shaquille O'Neal:
In the end, he made Hall look like the 2nd coming of Merv Griffin. Remember, Cosell tried doing a variety show more than 40 years ago, and bombed. There was a reason for that. If you're established for doing something specific, like, in Cosell's case, calling boxing & football, and you're asked to move to another venue, like a variety show, and you don't have the talent needed for that gig, it ain't gonna work. Smith was another case in point. Because he's a polarizing, toxic personality on ESPN, he's only there for ratings and click bait.
I tried watching this sad excuse for entertainment, and then wished I had the best of Arsenio's 1989-94 talk show on DVD.
Rating: D.
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