SOMETHING is missing from the new season of Live with Kelly and Ryan.
The hosts are back. The guests are back. But where is the studio audience?
Fans lashed out this week after Live, which has been a morning staple for more than 30 years, returned after Labor Day for a brand new season – once again without a studio audience.
The show’s seats have been empty since the pandemic hit, when producers ditched the live audience and format to only tape shows in front of necessary members of the production team.
But more than two years later, and while many other shows have long since welcomed back fans, Live remains dead.
Would be seat-filler expressed their frustration online.
“Seriously, still no “live” audience…not even remotely?” one person tweeted.
“Y’all need to get with the program!”
Another added: “Virtual audience OK but we need “live” back & in studio.”
While one fan questioned: “What I want to know is why does Live with Kelly & Ryan, a talk show with no studio audience, have a DJ?”
Most read in Entertainment
BORING AND PREDICTABLE
The lack of an enthusiastic crowd could be contributing to early complaints that the show has become “boring” and “predictable.”
Fans are even speculating that the show is faking scenes to boost ratings amid fears it will be cancelled.
One fan raged: “Live! is the worst show on the planet and is so boring it almost seems as if they have to fake embarrassing blunders on TV just to keep their tiny audience watching.”
Another agreed and posted: “Live with Kelly and Ryan has to be the most unseasoned show on television.”
Yet a third Tweeted: “The most boring show on TV.”
UNWELCOME BACK
Ryan joined Kelly as permanent co-host in 2017, and the duo spent this past week looking back on their time together over the years.
According to a press release from the show, as a welcome back this week, the hosts talked to their guests not only about upcoming projects but also on their “favorite firsts.”
On Tuesday, the hosts kicked off “Live’s Favorite Firsts Week,” where they looked back on Kelly and Ryan’s memorable ‘first’ moments on the show.
The trip down memory lane culminated on Friday, when the duo looked back at their best moments over the past five years.
While awaiting the new season, viewers had been blasting Kelly and Ryan for faking their “new” episodes.
In recent weeks, the hosts had been pre-recording new openings of them bantering back and forth per usual, while splicing in old interviews for the rest of the broadcasts.