Amazon Pilots: Onion News Network

Not at all what I was expecting. I thought the ONN would be a news show much like Jon Stewart’s immensely popular The Daily Show on Comedy Channel. Instead, it’s a scripted show about the ugliness of the daily news cycle. It stars an adorable set of characters in various stages of neurotic and reminds one more of a Legend of Ron Burgundy without charisma.

The main character is a poor shmuck imported from Indiana (a stand-in for rural America) to the Big Apple, where he wants to make it big in news. The whole world makes of him, but in the end he gets his break and gets the job he’s been craving. The protagonist is a familiar actor, Christopher Masterson, who used to be Francis, the oldest of the kids in Malcolm in the Middle.