‘The Wanda Sykes Show’ Offers Reprieve From Taylor Swift-Led ‘SNL’

Although we're still a half-day away from Taylor Swift's two-pronged Saturday Night Live assault of blandness, it wouldn't be entirely premature to assume that tonight's episode, so darn full of Swift as it is, to bring out the narcoleptic in all of us. And if the evening turns out one of those decidedly Kristen Wiig-lite episodes, we may just lapse into a coma. Which could be avoided by switching over to Fox. Once home to MADtv and occasionally, reruns of V.I.P., the scattershot network is filling its Saturday late night slot with The Wanda Sykes Show. If this variety show is even remotely as sharp as Sykes' stand-up, channel changers lingering on SNL for an elusive chuckle may find themselves with a high-spirited new option.

Although Sykes tells the New York Times about embarking on a TV project that botched one of her previous projects, “It wasn’t just Fox I was leery about. It was the whole thing of: ‘Do I really want to get back in there? I know how hard it is to launch a show. Do I want to spend that much energy, and everything is just left up to them?’” Whether The Wanda Sykes Show lasts only a couple episodes or becomes a cornerstone of Fox’s Saturday night line-up, Sykes’ off-color humor will at least provide a colorful contrast to Swift’s “stunned deer” brand of theatrics.

Nevertheless, it’ll follow well on the heels of last month’s I’ma Be Me on HBO which featured sensitive discussions of death panels and everyone’s expectations of Michelle Obama. Below, Sykes offers a not too far-fetched theory about Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.