Any Given Wednesday, Bill Simmons’s new TV series, was sandwiched between screenings of The Martian and Lucy, two recent films chronicling the struggles of a lost individual to make sense of strange and hostile surroundings, for its premiere on HBO last night. The scheduling was apt, because for long stretches of the show, Simmons, making his debut on TV after a decade as American sportswriting’s brightest court jester, seemed as disoriented by his unfamiliar new format as Matt Damon was by Mars.
Dressed in full Doogie Howser Revival style – dark jeans, dad sneakers, a madras shirt unbuttoned to reveal a gray marle T-shirt – Simmons squeaked his way through an opening monologue that name-checked a few easy targets (Donald Trump) and offered up some nuggets of received wisdom (Michael Jackson was weird), before even more squeakily announcing, “Hey, I’m Bill Simmons and this is my new show!” It was a middling start, and things didn’t get much better from there.
Simmons was fired from ESPN midway through last year, either for calling Roger Goodell a “liar” (Simmons’s version), or for disrespecting his colleagues (ESPN’s). Along with The Ringer, his new website, Any Given Wednesday represents Simmons’s return to the mainstream media fray after a chastening year in exile.
In pre-premiere publicity Simmons positioned the new show as a thoughtful space unmoored from the top-of-the-feed, hot take shoutiness of most sports coverage today. A routine early in the show on the rise of LeBron James, who was hailed as a superstar from practically the day of his birth, offered some hope Simmons would make good on that pledge: “Aren’t we used to watching child celebs fuck up or become total weirdos?” he asked. So it was a little disappointing to see Simmons waste the promise of that opening with an interview segment every bit as predictable and tediously over-emoted as a Stephen A Smith-Skip Bayless “debate” on ESPN’s First Take.
On a set that resembled Simmons’s old Grantland home – brown leather couches, macho darkwood tables, animal tusks, and a large feature light shaped like the letter “B” – you could practically smell the Drakkar Noir coming through the screen. Charles Barkley appeared to discuss possibly the world’s most boring topic: whether LeBron is the greatest basketballer of all time. (Conclusion: he is, unless you think he isn’t.) “LeBron had a four-year head start!” Barkley boomed, repeating a line he’s already deployed on many occasions as a pundit covering the NBA. “Because he came out of high school?” Simmons replied, befuddled, head tilted, sounding for all the world like Jared Dunn on Silicon Valley. Off camera, there was a smattering of laughter: was that a studio audience, or just a bunch of people in the background having a conversation about something else?
A second interview with Ben Affleck – off the couches and over to the large, angry-looking dining table this time – was better, but that was chiefly down to Affleck’s lacerating honesty about his own failed acting career and the genuine, Boston-bred anger he displayed when discussing Deflategate, which he described as “the ultimate fucking bullshit outrage in sports”. Simmons chuckled along but basically let Affleck rip; as an interviewer, he has a lot of growing up to do.
The scripted segments were far better, as you’d expect from a host who’s made his legend tapping out sentences on the internet. There were neat touches of physical comedy in Simmons’s closing monologue (his cutaway after a short clip from Beyoncé’s Lemonade in particular), while his riff on the uncoolness of the ads Steph Curry appears in mixed snappy archival clip comedy with memorable lines (Curry was so popular throughout the 2015-16 NBA regular season, Simmons told us, “it was like some mad scientist combined March madness buzzer beaters with golden retriever puppy photos”). Best of all, Simmons even got in a couple of choice jabs at his former employer. One clip of Stephen A Smith was exquisitely petty, but petty is what we came for; petty makes for good TV. More of this, please.
The weeks to come will afford better insight into the viability of the show’s intriguing thesis: that the anarchic, genre-mixing spirit of the sports blog era – not to mention that world’s leading personalities – can translate well to TV. Either Simmons will build on the strength of the scripted segments and relax into his role as an interviewer, or the show will become little more than a souped-up nostalgia reel, not so much Any Given Wednesday as Any Given Archival Clip. Let’s hope it’s the former; given the other fare on offer, sports TV could do with a jolt of ironic real.
