The View Fires Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy

The View needs to get back to basics—and those basics, in the beginning, included younger cohosts. I am rarely one to side with TV's youth obsession, but for crying out loud, this show is verging on Red Hat Society territory. Debbie Matenopoulos was 23 when she sat on the show's premiere panel. Lisa Ling was 26 when she joined. So was Hasselbeck—and after that, someone must have stomped whatever crystal time machine she came in on to dust. The View never hired another person under 35 again.

That means that today entire swaths of the female population—college students, working twentysomethings, young stay-at-home moms—scroll right past The View. There's no one there to authentically represent their perspectives on dating, marriage, career-building, or reproductive issues. And you cannot blame a daytime time slot for their apathy: They watch Ellen. Come this fall, they'll have The Real—a Fox talker stocked with a younger and more diverse cast—which means The View better get its s—t together in a hurry.

The View started as a program that wasn't afraid to take risks: Walters plucked Matenopoulos and Ling out of total obscurity. Producers rode out Rosie O'Donnell's volatility for all it was worth. And they cultivated an intimate presence in a way that had viewers hooked on the cohosts' lives (who else can still picture Meredith Vieira's dog?), back before being a cohost meant alternately screaming about your vote and your book.

It worked once, and it can work again, because women like me still have affection for this franchise, still want to want to watch it. Case in point:

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It can work again, if the show doubles down on fresh voices, hires some funny female writers from, I don't know, the endless pool of comedians that is New York City, and stops trying to trick women into identifying with the biggest B-lister it can afford. Boys are not the answer, View. Girls still have plenty to say—and besides, I don't trust your taste in men. Mario Cantone's around way too much.