Might Elisabeth Hasselbeck's Imminent Departure Make The View Less Unbearable?

In just a few minutes, Elisabeth Hasselbeck will appear on her very last episode of The View. If that seems sudden, that's because it is, sort of: though Hasselbeck has been rumoured to be on the verge of leaving The View for a while, it was only yesterday that she confirmed she was peacing out, and that she'll replace Gretchen Carlson as the new blonde lady on Fox & Friends, the Fox News Channel's breakfast TV show. (Vanessa Bayer: sorry, girl. Kate McKinnon: start working out your Hasselbeck impression.)

The View has always been a tough slog for the audience, for all the reasons that it's usually parodied for: the personalities sometimes (often) have a shallow understanding of the issues they're discussing; that shallow understanding doesn't prevent them from digging in their heels when they're challenged; the cross-talk makes the conversation impossible to decipher even if you wanted to follow it, which you probably don't. But Hasselbeck has always been the worst of the bunch. She came to the show with (in my opinion) a bit of an inferiority complex, since the reason she had a public profile at all was that she'd starred on a reality competition show (Survivor). Not to say she isn't sincere in her conservative views -- she'd have to be to work for Fox News (though she does talk out both sides of her mouth with regard to gay marriage) -- but I think that acting as the panel's contrarian gave her an identity separate from her Survivor stardom. And she was never more obnoxious as a Republican woman in media than during the 2008 Presidential campaign, as this supercut amply demonstrates.

More recently, she's been corrected on her ignorance by the President and ignored by James Lipton.

Look, The View is always going to be a hard sell for all the reasons I already cited above, but Hasselbeck has been the show's most garbagey element since she arrived. And they're talking about replacing her with Brooke Shields, an actually cool lady who wasn't scared to tell off Tom Cruise for his narrow understanding of medication and postpartum depression. Maybe producers will acknowledge that the conservative experiment represented by Hasselbeck's tenure was a failure, and decide not to replicate it. Maybe when the panelists have more in common, their conversations will be more cordial and productive -- and audible. And maybe all the viewers who feel they need a strong conservative voice on their all-lady daytime panel will just watch the one on The Talk and make The View into the smarter alternative.

Of course, if the also-departing Joy Behar ends up being replaced by Jenny McCarthy, all of the above will be moot.