The best satire currently on television is also the greatest parody of
television news — ever. It combines the graphics-crazed, overlit,
flash-and-sensation look of the Fox News Channel and the Blitzer-panel-
of-experts, giant-touch-wallscreen antics of CNN. Onion is not
ideological: its laughs don't come at you from the Left as on The
Daily Show. Rather, the writers are simply drunk with comic malice on
the stunning superficiality of tv news… and by the time they're
done, they've skewered it so brilliantly, you almost forget to laugh
(and then you start choking with laughter). Plus, so much is going on
on-screen, you have to watch more than once to get all the jokes. With
incredibly high production values for an up-channel cable network
(IFC), the full-screens, banners, animations and transitions are
indistinguishable from the real ones, boosting the stakes with their
sheer authenticity. But all that eye candy is just the background to
ONN's greatest asset: Suzanne Sena as anchor “Brooke Alvarez”. This
kind of humor won't work unless you have someone who can flawlessly
read this much copy, copy where each word counts, quickly and without
stumbling. Sena is scary good — an iconic “Fox blonde” with what can
only be described as Nazi self-confidence. I am blown away by this
show. — Jeff Schultz