Oprah Winfrey returned to TV over the weekend — but was a two-hour debut too much to ask of even her most devoted fans?
“Oprah’s Next Chapter” — which debuted New Year’s night, exactly one year after her now-troubled cable network premiered — is a new weekly show being billed as the old “Oprah Winfrey Show” taken out of the studio.
But fans and critics questioned the decision to make the debut episode — an interview with Aerosmith singer and “American Idol” judge Steven Tyler — two hours long.
“The two-hour format felt a little long,” the TV critic for Entertainment Weekly wrote yesterday in a review with the headline “New network, new series, same Oprah.” (The review was otherwise so positive that Oprah’s executive producer, Sheri Salata, immediately posted it on her Twitter page.)
Ratings for the debut show will not be available until later this week.