By Nick A. Zaino III Globe correspondent, Updated June 29, 2022, 1:44 p.m.
HBO’s “Pause With Sam Jay” doesn’t feel like any other show on television. With Dorchester’s Jay as the host, it’s a talk show that takes place at a party, with field pieces and occasional sketches. Each episode is a deep dive into a single topic, and it’s as fearless and personal as Jay’s stand-up. Season two has seen Jay and her fiancé talking to a counselor on camera about cheating. Jay also explored what prison does to an individual in an episode that included conversations with her brother about how the experience changed him. But her show also has a lot of silly and incongruous moments, like the one where Jay rode a horse through Boston yelling “The crackas are coming!” in an episode about race relations, or when she interviewed a Satanist on a duck boat. We caught up with Jay in the midst of the show’s current season. New episodes air Fridays at 11 p.m.
Q. The show seems designed to avoid concentrating on guest stars or pundits. And the party seems especially set up so someone can immediately call you out. Is that the design of it?
A. Yeah. We wanted to do a show that was different than the other shows that we were seeing. We wanted to hear voices that weren’t in the late-night space. And we also wanted to do a show where the host could be challenged. It seems like a lot of shows, the host has the authority, and there isn’t a lot of pushback. So we just wanted to bring a diverse group of people together and kind of tailor something that felt more like a real conversation that would happen out in the world.
Q. There’s an element of lampooning current events, but the emphasis seems to be on that discussion. You actually seem to want to get somewhere with the discussion rather than just fill the space with an anecdote.
A. That’s the goal, to try to move these conversations forward and to talk about these things that are going on in a more evergreen way. Things were feeling very stagnant to me when I watched TV. There was no real conversation about all the gray that kind of goes on in the middle, and also how people get to how they think. We just wanted to create something that you could take with you after you watch it and try to bring it into your day. And maybe you leave going, “Oh, I need to continue this conversation, because it’s interesting to me.”
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With a new season of ‘Pause,’ Sam Jay keeps the conversation going