Showtime Loves the Who Is America? Controversy, and Wants More of It

Love it or leave it, Sacha Baron Cohen's Who Is America? is undoubtedly a feat of planning, superb surprises and diamond-tough non-disclosure clauses. And while the public is divided on whether Cohen's elaborate pranks are some sort of bizarro service journalism or just juvenile trolling -- the bigwigs at Showtime believe it to be really good for the bottom line. Who Is America ratings have climbed since the surprise premiere but, even better, it's been on the lips and tweetin' fingertips of culture definers and is making headlines all over cable news.

Sacha Baron Cohen's Who Is America? Doesn't Have the Answers

Not surprisingly, Showtime is figuring out how to team with Cohen to do it again -- crazy logistics be damned. "I'm dying to bring it back," Showtime's CEO and president David Nevins told reporters at the Television Critics Press Association summer press tour Monday. "There will be a process... I don't know [there will] be announcements."

That's not a firm commitment to renew it -- Sacha Baron Cohen probably has to go to the ends of the Earth to find the cutting-edge prosthetics he'll need to bamboozle high-powered cultural leaders at this point, and he'd likely want to let the dust settle from the upcoming midterm elections -- but Nevins' gushing over Cohen's feat almost certainly means the two parties are figuring out how to make another one happen. "I think Sacha is one of the great comedians of our time," he said, calling the provocateur the "Daniel Day Lewis of comedy."

Showtime kept the first season a secret for nearly a year as Cohen and crew worked on it, and then maintained another week of silence between announcing the series and surprise dropping it in July. Repeat airings of the premiere and delayed viewing following word-of-mouth buzz helped lift the premiere to just over one million viewers according to Variety, and the resignation of Georgia lawmaker Jason Spencer after he showed his butt and screamed racial epithets in some stupid defense exercise Cohen made up have made Who Is America? one of the most impactful series of the year, even if its meaning isn't entirely clear. "I don't know what he's saying about America," Nevins admitted but, "He had me at hello."

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Who Is America? airs Sundays at 10/9c on Showtime.

(Full disclosure: TV Guide is owned by CBS, Showtime's parent company.)