WATCH: Brian Williams Off the Air For 23 Minutes Due to Brutal Tech Difficulties

The three major cable networks have had surprisingly few technical hiccups over the past year, as the pandemic has forced production teams to dramatically change their operations in service of remote setups. But sometimes, you just have one of those nights. For MSNBC, Wednesday was such a night.

MSNBC’s 11 p.m. program, The 11th Hour, was plagued by technical difficulties on Wednesday which dramatically hampered the broadcast throughout. The problems began right from the jump, when host Brian Williams was, evidently, not able to hear colleague Lawrence O’Donnell toss to him at the top of the hour. Williams was seen looking down at his desk, silent for 10 full seconds after he was supposed to have started his show. (And as any production person will tell you, 10 seconds feels like an eternity when there is dead air on a telecast.)

After those 10 excruciating seconds, anchor Milissa Rehberger jumped in from another studio to save Williams — picking up the cue and instantly throwing to commercial.

“We seem to have a little trouble getting to Brian Williams here,” Rehberger said. “Not sure what’s going on. Are we gonna take a quick break, yes we will. And we’ll get Brian, and we’ll be right back.

When the broadcast returned, Rehberger was back on screen, and she began delivering a brief news update. The next segment featured 10 p.m. host Lawrence O’Donnell explaining that there were issues with Williams’s “camera position.”

Finally, at 11:23 p.m., Williams was back in business. Sort of.

“I indeed did not ask for 23 minutes off tonight,” Williams lightheartedly said. “A brief explanation of what happened to us: Our central control room appears to have gone the way of the Texas power grid. We have lost all of the incoming guest remotes from most of the people we were supposed to talk to tonight. … One word of warning, the ear piece through which I usually hear our guests, the control room, the sound of our program has been rendered inert along with the rest of our central control room. So I’m going to have to listen to the broadcast on a nearby speakerphone — in case any of that sounds unusual.”

A tough night, for sure. But props to a hardworking crew for making the best of nightmarish circumstances.

Watch above, via MSNBC.