1/2 Hour News Hour: “It Isn’t Terrible”

> Alessandra Stanley, New York Times: “Sometimes the humor is so heavy-handed that it seems almost like self-parody.”

> Tom Shales, Washington Post: “But those on the left anticipating, and probably hoping for, some kind of ghastly disaster will be disappointed — and may even feel like joining in the (apparently canned) laughter more times than they’d expect. In a nutshell: It isn’t terrible.”

> Jonathan Storm, Philadelphia Inquirer: 24 “has been under fire recently for depicting so much torture. The 1/2 Hour News Hour is slow torture all by itself.”

> Adam Buckman, New York Post: “High-decibel laughter and applause seem to greet every punch line… Maybe the laughs are actually emanating from real live people, although no studio audience is ever glimpsed.”

> Joanna Weiss, Boston Globe: FNC “built its success on confident pronouncements about the way things ought to be. Maybe that’s the way to think of The 1/2 Hour News Hour — not as a comedy show, but as political wish-fulfillment, a list of jokes hurled directly at the choir. In the end, the choir members might feel smugly satisfied. But they probably won’t be laughing very hard.”