Because there is no better forum for breaking down current events than a roundtable full of people with opposing, equally shallow viewpoints, Barbara Walters is said to be working on another edition of The View, this time a “unisex” version geared toward men. Currently her dream cast includes former Today Show host Bryant Gumbel, who will use his “Meredith Vieira vibe” to captain a troupe of manly men who will “inject a male perspective into the topics of the day,” and other vaguely phallic metaphors.
Also on that list: former BET news anchor Jacque Reid—who is not a man, but who will fill the all-important Sherri Shepherd role—and also-not-a-man and former Fox And Friends /The O’Reilly Factor co-host E.D. Hill, who will be the show’s token screeching conservative in the Elisabeth Hasselbeck mold. (You may remember Hill as the woman who asked whether a fist bump between Barack and Michelle Obama was a “terrorist fist jab,” which even Fox News thought was ridiculous, and fired her soon after.) If things go according to plan, expect Hill to spar daily with Filipino-American comedian and Ugly Betty star Alec Mapa, who will “balance Gumbel’s reserve with a splash of flamboyance.” It’s like they carved a window into the American male mind and framed it with some tasteful curtains.