Much is being made of the fact that this is the first election for the new Big Three anchors: Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, now that Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather have all made their exeunt.* Except Brokaw will be back to play anchor emeritus alongside Williams on NBC, and Rather will be — surprise! — anchoring right along with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in Comedy Central's hour-block hybrid-shared "Indecision 2006: The Midterm Midtacular," leaving unbroken his 44-year streak of election coverage. Not bad.
Pretty brilliant move on the part of Comedy Central, and Rather; it will be interesting to see how the ratings swing at 11pm — they were always going to, to be sure, but depending on how well-promoted this gambit is Comedy Central could attract fans of Rather tuning in for familiarity or sentimentality or just plain novelty. Though he swore to Gail Shister that he'd refrain from typical Ratherisms like "This race is tight like a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach" (mental image: Santorum), between Stewart, Colbert and the correspondents one never knows what to expect (particularly if they loose loose cannon Rob Riggle on him). For Rather, it's a brilliant triple-whammy: Return to an anchor desk that matters, rack up cred on what's really the hottest news show out there, and compete with CBS to boot. On balance, a better gig than doing a guest turn on "Free Speech."
Oh yeah, there are some other networks covering the election, too.
*We're pretty sure we used "exeunt" wrong and we definitely don't know how to pronounce it,** but it's sort of a fun word to use, and this drama is nothing if not Shakespearian, or at least Robespierrean. That reference also made no sense unless you consider that we're talking about Dan Rather, after all. His exeunt was particularly bloody. Oh yes, we do mean to be this deep, truly.
**Oh, fine, this is how you pronounce it. Lay on, MacDan!
