Ellen DeGeneres returns to TV after 16-month hiatus

Sixteen months after the end of her long-running daytime talk show, lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres returned to TV last Saturday by appearing in a two-hour Discovery Channel special entitled Saving the Gorillas: Ellen’s Next Adventure.

The special, available on the Discovery+ and Max streaming platforms, shows DeGeneres and her wife Portia DiRossi helping build a wildlife conservation campus in Rwanda — the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Fosey was an influential American conservationist who raised awareness about the harmful impacts of gorilla poaching and wildlife tourism.

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“Rwanda is home to some of the last remaining mountain gorillas on Earth,” DeGeneres said in a promotional video for the show. “Nothing keeps you more present than sitting with gorillas.”

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Though DeGeneres had a dedicated team to help her construct the campus, they did so amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting supply chain issues, as well as an earthquake and an active volcano. The TV special shows these challenges along with footage of DeGeneres and primatologists interacting with gorillas.

The campus, located outside Volcanoes National Park where Fossey conducted many studies, officially opened in early 2022. It has three main buildings – the Sandy and Harold Price Research Center, the Rob and Melani Walton Education Center, and the Cindy Broder Conservation Gallery – and also housing for visiting students and researchers.

The campus has given the Dian Fossey Fund expanded classroom space, a science library, and a computer lab that enable conservationists to hold conferences, seminars, and trainings for professionals, students, and visitors. The conservation gallery contains “original, never-before-seen artifacts from Dian Fossey’s nearly two decades living with the gorillas, stunning visual experiences, including virtual and augmented reality and a 360-degree immersive theater,” according to the campus’ website.

The campus has hosted over 40,000 visitors since its opening, with roughly half coming from Rwanda and half coming from other countries worldwide, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

After a nearly 20-year run, DeGeneres aired the final episode of her daytime talk show, Ellen, on May 26, 2022. She taped over 3,200 episodes of her show and won over 60 Daytime Emmy Awards for it. Throughout its run, the “Queen of Kind” ran warm interviews with celebrities as well as with everyday people trying to do good in the world. She’d often challenge them with lighthearted games or surprise them with generous gifts meant to aid their work.

But in 2020, the comedienne came under fire from former employees who accused her of rudeness and not communicating with them during the pandemic’s height. Some said they’d lost their jobs for taking medical leave and were targeted for sexual harassment by powerful and unaccountable producers.

Several producers resigned from the show after Buzzfeed published the allegations.

While DeGeneres took responsibility and apologized to her employees, less than a year later, she announced her intention to end the show, stating that it was “not a challenge anymore.”

“Twenty-five years ago they canceled my sitcom because they didn’t want a lesbian to be in primetime once a week,” she said on her final episode. “And I said, ‘OK, then I’ll be on daytime every day. How about that?’ … If I’ve done anything in the past 19 years, I hope I’ve inspired you to be yourself, your true, authentic self. And if someone is brave enough to tell you who they are, be brave enough to support them, even if you don’t understand.”