Pause With Sam Jay is a variety show that is actually pushing the boundaries of "variety"

Vulture

"For a genre with as flexible a name as 'variety,' it’s too bad that so few comedy-variety shows push at the boundaries and actually play with potential beyond 'let’s do some comedy and maybe cut in some interviews,'" says Kathryn VanArendonk. "Late-night comedy-variety has codified into a specific, well-defined space. Sketch is something else; musical and talent variety is off on its own other planet. On HBO, though, Pause With Sam Jay is something new. It’s a comedy-talk-variety show that’s an interview platform, a cultural exploration, a dash of comedian vanity project, and also a raucous, freewheeling, real-talking house party." VanArendonk adds: "Pause is Jay’s chance to rework that power differential, to reframe her impulse to needle and question into a context where someone can needle and question her back. Each episode is roughly shaped on a theme or idea and presents arguments and perspectives on the topic of the week. There’s a cancel-culture episode (called 'Tea-M.Z.'), and one about money, and another about the term 'coon,' which the episode defines as 'exploiting one’s own community for personal gain or acceptance from a dominant culture'....Nearly every piece of Pause has value and weight. Jay is a curious, playful interviewer, remarkably good at poking fun at people and weighing her own opinions, while also staying open to new ideas. The comedy sketches are usually strong, too, and manage to carry the same tone of inquisitive goofing-but-actually-dead-serious-but-also-a-joke feeling Jay is so good at negotiating. But it’s the house-party framing that makes Pause what it is, the way it sets a camera in the middle of a friendly, loud, full-throated discussion then expects the viewer to just roll with it, with no explanations or introductions."