The show featured news items read by Maddow and her commentary on each of them as well as interview segments with politicians, newsmakers and pundits.
Guests included presidential candidate John Edwards, author Eric Alterman, reporters from The Nation magazine and commentators from The Center for American Progress.
Jones also read the previous night's sports news during the second hour, substituting odd phrases for the word "beat" or "defeated" in the result depending on the city of the team that won — e.g. "the San Francisco Giants Violent Femmes'd the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-2."
[1][2] While the show covered plenty of serious political topics, some levity was injected via the use of snippets of dialogue, music and sound effects.
The opening theme music was "Stealing the Stock" from the Ocean's Twelve soundtrack, as revealed on August 23, 2007's "Ask Dr. Maddow" segment.