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The Chat Room 9.30pm, Seven
IT seems odd that Seven has chosen to debut this type of show -- a panel of regulars sit around cracking jokes about events of the day and interviewing celebs -- at the tail end of the trend.
The audience's appetite for shows such as The Panel seems to have died down. Sure, The Glass House and The Fat are still pumping along merrily, but the "in" genres this year are sketch comedy and the solo interview show, which Rove McManus has been doing for a couple of years and Andrew Denton and Shaun Micallef are now having a crack at.
Still, you can't begrudge a commercial network showing a bit of individuality, even if it is only by hitting the old trend as it tails off in favour of a new one, and if you remember The Big News/ The Late Report, Seven's last foray into this genre that featured Richard Stubbs and John Safran and arrived (and disappeared very quickly) in 1998, around the same time as The Panel, it's brave of them to try again.
In the interest of fairness, I should admit that I have mixed feelings about this...