The set is great. And the opening credits are brilliant and obviously cost ten times as much as any other show’s. It’s like watching actual money be animated.
I get the same impression sitting through the 20 minutes of slick commercials they need to bring in that money. I turn off the sound but the vibes of “BUY THIS! BUY IT NOW!!” are so powerful that I can feel the plaster flaking even when the sound is off. Really can’t stand commercial television.
On the second show he explained how they barely got the edited version of the first how to the broadcast center on time. I wonder if that had anything to do with the long commercial break in the middle of the show.
George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson? Is he going for “pretty” people who don’t have much to say? Doesn’t seem to be his style. Also I’m not a big fan of his musical guests - they seem very “coastal” to me without lots of broad appeal. I didn’t care for them on the Colbert Report either; that’s when I would turn it off and go to bed.
That long commercial break in the middle is a late night talk show thing. It’s two commercial breaks in a row, with a 10-second title screen in between.
By the time late night talk shows first came on my radar, Letterman was already an institution. I became sort of vaguely aware that ‘people with taste’ hugely preferred him over Leno, but honestly they both seemed to be minor variations on the same shtick. Letterman had more of an absurdist bent, but it was pretty tame compared to Conan or just about anything Adult Swim was putting on the air. Later, I would hear refrains along the lines of “Okay, sure, Letterman is comfortable now, but you should have seen him back in the day! He was wild!”
I feel like I’m now becoming that demographic. Colbert built up a huge amount of goodwill with me on the Colbert Report. I’m sure he’ll produce a fair amount of quality material on the Late Show, but eventually settle into a comfortable routine. Ten years from now, am I going to haranguing kids on how much better Colbert is than Fallon because I still carry that goodwill with me rather than any meaningful difference between the shows?
I guess what I’m saying is the first couple shows are fine, and I expect will continue to be fine and probably have a fair number of quality bits. But… with that lingering sense of he could be doing more.
I half liked the demon thing, because I thought it was an attempt to go back to old-school talk show product placement and recommendations. I thought it would be an alternative to commercial breaks, and maybe that’s where he’s hoping to go with it eventually. The Oreo thing could also fall in that category. If they can make it feel organic and not interrupt the entertainment stream, I’m all for it.
Likewise, if they MUST do commercials, I’m all for getting it over with in one fell swoop. Time to put together a nice snack, or to get the dishwasher unloaded. Or, in this case,what I did, which was fall asleep. LOL!
The stained glass projection was a huge disappointment too. The GQ article made me think it was real. It really wasn’t clear to me what about that set took so long to set up.
After thinking it through though, what I most want to see is a real smile. That campy mouth-stretcher was straight from the wax museum. Blech!
Underwhelmed again. Scarlett Johansen is kind of pretty, but has a perfect voice for a mime troupe.
I didn’t read the GQ article, but Colbert did a few podcasts in the months before the premiere of the show, and he said they did find a lot of stained glass windows in storage in the theater, but that they weren’t going to put them up because of the cost.
I like her voice.
Eh? Kendrick Lamar is quite a well known rapper with fairly broad mainstream appeal (Grammy nominations, etc). He’s having Toby Keith as his musical guest on tonight. I’m sure he’ll get a rocker or two in there.
Heck, Letterman was the king of getting lesser known interesting musical acts on his show (it was one of the best parts).
Colbert seems like an interesting guy. As he gets more comfortable with the show, I hope he’ll do a little less reading scripted bits off the teleprompter and more talking to the audience as himself.
It’s alright. Colbert’s a funny and likable guy, but I don’t think even he can make celebrity interviews interesting, so I doubt I’ll end up watching regularly.
I’m also kinda curious why and how these particular set of celebrities were convinced to appear though. Neither Musk, Cloony nor Johansson need the extra exposure, weren’t pushing any products and I don’t think they’re particular friends with Colbert. I guess maybe they owed someone at CBS a favour, but at least in Musk’s case, its kinda hard to see how that would be true.
The Celeb interviews are the weak part of all these shows. But I did like the Musk interview despite the awkwardness of it on Musk’s part.
I thought some of the sillyness worked better when he was playing an over the top satirical character. Overall, it’s off to a good enough start, and I haven’t fallen in love with The Nightly Show yet, so I’ll keep watching for a bit. I don’t need the show to be great…just not annoying from 11:30 until @midnight.
They could be Colbert fans. it happens.
Joe Biden is tonight’s guest. Could we have a new rant, please?
Anyone else notice that Colbert doesn’t talk into the camera, rather he shouts. I don’t find him to be a conversationalist. His show seems over produced with lots of gimmicks.
The Biden interview just finished. In my view it was a rare moment in talk shows. Colbert seems to be really doing something new here. There was no superficial banter, just heartfelt sincerity, and he got Biden to do the same, to the credit of both.
I don’t get it. I wasn’t following any news about him that closely and I just assumed that his retiring from the Colbert Report meant he was retiring from show business. Why would he give up his own original, awesome, hilarious, popular show where he could pretty much do whatever he wanted to host a boring “traditional” late night show? I mean I assume he’s probably getting paid more (maybe a lot more) by CBS than Comedy Central, but at this point he’s already gangster-rich either way. So really, WTF Colbert?
^
Aye.
And the problem is, it’s too late to go back now.
I don’t give a rat’s fart about his new show, nor do I care about watching him as he helps sell crap. He’s no longer a force for good (comedy good, social good, etc.), he’s just another huckster IMO.
There, I said it.