I just caught the first episode last night. Wow, that was really good. I’m not sure how he is going to top that one. Both the conversation with Obama and the segments on John Lewis were riveting. It really made me miss having Obama as our President. I laughed when they were wrapping things up and Dave says something like “Well, I know you need to be getting back to the White House…”
That could have gone 3 hours plus and still would have been excellent. The “walking into the sunset” ending was a stitch. Agree with everything else Shoeless said.
Don’t know how Clooney’s segment can match this one. Hope springs eternal.
With Netflix closing down shows left and right, they must like the idea of a show where the major expense is “Rent a medium-sized theater in Indianapolis somewhere”.
I thought they were expanding their original content, not reducing it. Is this mainly movies and not shows?
It’s hilarious that Dave couldn’t stay off the hamster wheel. I guess 35 years with his nose to the grindstone wasn’t enough.
LOL he’ll never learn to relax and enjoy life.
Even workaholic Jay has avoided another talk show. Although he still does nightclub gigs.
Jay has a car show on one of the cable channels.
Cars are Jays hobby and it evolved into a show.
I’ll have to watch an episode of Dave’s new show.
I’ll admit to not really studying the issue but my casual understanding was that Netflix exploded from a handful of carefully selected “boutique” shows with critical acclaim to throwing out just tons of original programming and is now pulling back a bit as expensive to produce shows are failing to gain/hold an audience given the sheer glut of them.
If someone has information to the contrary, I wouldn’t argue. I was really just remarking on how Dave’s show has to be pretty cheap to produce (for TV programming) which has to be an attractive feature for Netflix.
I imagine the demands of this program are a good bit less arduous than the daily grind of his late-night shows, and he’s interviewing people he REALLY wants to talk to without having to work in the b-listers of the week. I’d call this semi-retirement.
Yeah, this feels like a hobbyist program versus having to come up with and present material four nights a week (even with a writing staff, etc). He also felt like he could be more relaxed rather than being “on” like he would with a nightly show.
When he was walking with Rep. Lewis, I noticed the adjacent street lane was closed off and police were steering everyone into the left lane. I wonder if that was expressly for filming purposes or if there just happened to be street work – though it looked like the former. Was kind of a weird visual with the two casually strolling down the road discussing the Civil Rights Movement while police maintain the area around them.
I noticed that too, and wondered the same thing. My guess is that it was for the safety of the cameraman, who was slowly walking backwards. You don’t want him accidentally stepping out – or falling – into traffic.
Plus, he doesn’t have to lose the Retirement Beard.
Their original content budget is “growing” to $8 billion this year. I think they are expanding.
They key thing is that once they make a show or movie, they can stream it forever with no renewal of rights needed. They pay a lot for a big show season, but they then stream it forever.
It’s both… they are expanding the original programming budget, but also being far more cutting if a show doesn’t gain the ratings that Netflix expects. So you may have a lot more big budget Netflix shows that only last 2 seasons like Sense8.
Is it on cable? I thought it was a YouTube channel “Jay Leno’s Garage”. Is it the same show?
Sure, understood. But that only works to their benefit if anyone is watching it or, more importantly, staying subscribed in part to watch it. If you pay $X-million for a show and no one watches it, you wasted money no matter how long you can keep it in your catalog.
I watched about 20 minutes and got extremely bored. I didn’t like the pacing and atmosphere of the show. It reminded me of a conversation you would have with a stranger at a dentist’s office.
Wow, which dentist to you go to?
I’ve been a Letterman fan since the very early days. This format suits him perfectly at this stage of his career, and I’m glad he hasn’t faded from public view (like Carson did). He sure looked like he was enjoying himself.
I like the one-on-one casual conversation type shows (anyone remember Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow? Bob Costas’ Later?).
Looking forward to more episodes.
mmm
I’m 57 years old, but never caught the David Letterman craze.
I did like this though. I am a fan of Obama. I thought it was very nice, and more like two old friends talking and enjoying each others company. Each had a few questions that they wanted to ask.
Yeah, Snyder was awesome.
Are you an ATT&T U-verse or DirecTV customer? AT&T has their own channel called Audience, and there is a show called “Off Camera with Sam Jones” where he does hour-long one-on-one interviews.