Late Night

I've been recording Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to see what his show is all about. I'm ok with it. I'm not going to rave about it, because I know it's a new show- and let's be honest, most talk shows kind of suck until they find their groove. There have been many many talk shows that have fallen away because of poor ratings or whatever, but I'd like to see Mr. Fallon succeed.


Fallon at first seemed like a weird choice to head up a late night talk type format show. Though his SNL credibility makes him an obvious funny man (if he could stay in character dangit!) I wondered what it will be like when its just him, some random folks and the cameras. His appearances on Conan O'brien made me believe that his show would be him shouting at people in weird accents or impressions... Kinda like Robin Williams' standup routine from the 70's. That scared me a bit, but then I thought, what other talk show host can do so many impersonations? None. After watching a few episodes I've come to a few conclusions:


The Roots is an awesome house band. I've never listened to the Roots before, and that's probably because I'm not into an R&B, hip hop type of anything. They have huge catalog to draw from and they can play. Other house bands I can think of (other than... Joe Firstman? I never watch Last Call with Carson Daly) are more like Letterman's CBS Orchestra, with a group of folks that can play very well, but seem kind of lifeless off camera. The Roots don't have that problem.



Fallon's timing with his monologue and throughout the show reminds me of his stint on Weekend Update. I'm not sure if there's some miscommunication with the cue card guy, or if he's throwing in pauses for comedic effect, but it seems a little awkward. Which is because the show is new. But Fallon has been on tv for a long time, and has lots of experience... so I don't know what else to blame it on other than jitters. He also doesn't know how to react to the audience, O'Brien will make fun of himself or his writers, Leno will brush it off with more lame jokes, but Fallon just stands there methodically waiting for the next cue card.


I like the audience interaction I've seen thus far. Bringing up strangers on camera can be a good or a bad thing, but Fallon seems to know what he's doing. Some of the gag interaction with writers placed in the audience has been... eh. Fallon's wandering eye contact makes me wonder who he's looking at.


The celebrity guest list has some big names- to get people to watch and it shows that NBC wants Fallon to do well. Lorne Michaels is producing it so he can definitely pull some strings around the network if he has to.


The critics will rip the show apart for a couple of years, and Fallon will sail through ok. NBC did the same thing with O'Brien, so I'm not surprised there.

I'm in a Late show transition period now that Conan is off the air. I don't know which show to follow. I used to watch Letterman a lot. Leno's monologue is good, but I don't care much for the rest of the show after that. I tried watching Jimmy Kimmel, but... He is a good interviewer though. Carson Daly is a smuggy wastard, and his guests are second rate at best.


I'm going to watch every show for a week and find out which one I will follow this year.