As far as a first time late night host doing his first show, Trevor nailed it. Really helps that he gets to step into an already established brand and format with the same writing team that Jon had, there wasn't much that fell flat like you see with so many other host debuts. His opening bit was great and I already like that new corespondent
With The Daily Show and Colbert both back, things feel like they're getting back to normal in late night
Good to see Seth doing well - his show is really growing on me, and my go-to show for monologues and US Presidential debate coverage. Strong writing on this show. Found out recently his guitarist Marnie Stern is considered one of the top female players on the planet. She has a tapping style like Van Halen in her solo work.
I find myself skipping more and more of Colbert's Late Show. He started strong with essentially a longer Colbert Report, but now he's watered it down to a fairly formulaic talk show with boring celebrity interviews and no interesting bits. Pretty sad to watch
I find myself skipping more and more of Colbert's Late Show. He started strong with essentially a longer Colbert Report, but now he's watered it down to a fairly formulaic talk show with boring celebrity interviews and no interesting bits. Pretty sad to watch
That's what happens when you hit the big time. I am sure he will have a long and prosperous career being a completely vanilla talkshow host.
Seth had definitely improved since the start. I think he got better when they let him do the show just sitting behind the desk, instead of forcing him to do the standing monologue. He was much more comfortable, so his delivery has improved. The writing seems stronger as well. He stopped trying to do skits and stuff as much. They just never really worked. They really fine tuned it.
Something has fundamentally and rapidly altered the late-night landscape, and it’s not hard to identify a likely culprit: the Internet.
In the year 2015, YouTube is mostly comprised of Jimmy Fallon playing stupid party games with celebrities. My Facebook feed is full of articles linking to videos of late-night hosts “tackling” or “breaking down” the social issue du jour. Twitter is where I am constantly entreated to listen to every host’s take on X, Y or Z. Late-night comedy now comes prepackaged in segments built for a never-ending digital media cycle. It’s like a Kit Kat bar—bland but easily shareable. If it’s true that the medium is the message, then the Internet has transformed late-night comedy into a homogenous mass of videos whose universal underlying message is “click on me.”
It’s a genuine creative crisis. Do today’s late-nights hosts want to entertain for an evening or do they want to build something long-lasting in the process?
As it stands, it’s concerning that some of the most timeless late-night comedy is happening on the lowest-rated of the traditional late-night talk shows: Conan. Unlike the other hosts, O’Brien still regularly does silly sketches and films elaborate remotes, even in places like Cuba and, most recently, Armenia. He’s still making stuff that’s built to last.
Conan's Armenia show was really good - funny and touching.
I actually totally disagree. If you go bit for bit with what Colbert is doing compared with what Letterman did as host, it is very similar quality of shows. Dave just had less competition, Carson had absolutely none. If you watch a full Letterman show from the past there is ALOT of filler, and he always did a terrible job pretending to care about what some of his lesser guests had to say. The best part was when he would have standup comedians on to do their best material
People really look at history with rose glasses on, but honestly Fallon is doing a good job. Better than Leno and Conan did with the same show. I don't love the celebrities playing games part but when you're doing 5 hours of TV every week you need some self-writing material
Late night will never be what it was in Carson's day but it's not like the Internet killed it. It had been declining in importance before the Internet got popular
