ABC Tests Theory That Some People Would Like to Spend Their Sundays With Alec Baldwin

I’d really like to be able to write that nobody wants this to happen, yet clearly someone, aside from Alec Baldwin, does want this, their desire having set into motion a most objectionable concept for a show about talking.

The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Tuesday that Baldwin will star in a new ABC talk show series called Sundays With Alec Baldwin, the first episode of which will feature interviews with Jerry Seinfeld and Kate McKinnon and will air just after the Oscars on Sunday.

ABC has already ordered eight additional episodes, and ABC Entertainment’s president Channing Dungey threw her full support behind Baldwin, saying, “Alec’s intellect, wit and wealth of life experience afford him a voice and perspective we haven’t seen before in this format.” The network has yet to announce when the show will air, and the first episode is being marketed as a “sneak peak” rather than a premiere.

In his own statement about working with the network Baldwin came off very much as a humble man who does not scare me: “I’m excited about this show and grateful to ABC for taking a chance on me in what is, admittedly, a crowded field.”

You might know Baldwin from Glengarry Glen Ross, 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, or perhaps his recent turn as Guy Who Likes to Defend Men Accused of Sexual Misconduct. In alarmingly tone-deaf and arrogant ways, I might add, and in situations where he needn’t say anything at all. In the past few months he’s dismissed or made light of allegations against James Toback, Woody Alleen, and Dustin Hoffman. What, the New York Times’ opinion section couldn’t snatch him up first?