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A little disappointed with Stephen Colbert

 
 
 
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Achwienichtig

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Being a huge fan of the Colbert Report, I had high hopes for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Unfortunately, after watching the first two episodes, I am thus far disappointed. I understand he's given up his character, but he also appears to have given up his substance. His guest interviews have lacked anything substantive, his cultural critique is dull, and he's steering clear of politics (despite having Job Bush on in his first episode).

Is this just me? Any other Colbert fans out there feeling a bit disillusioned?
 
The first episode of anything isn't guaranteed to be great, and it will take time for him to get used to being a Late Show host.
 
Achwienichtig said:
Being a huge fan of the Colbert Report, I had high hopes for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Unfortunately, after watching the first two episodes, I am thus far disappointed. I understand he's given up his character, but he also appears to have given up his substance. His guest interviews have lacked anything substantive, his cultural critique is dull, and he's steering clear of politics (despite having Job Bush on in his first episode).

Is this just me? Any other Colbert fans out there feeling a bit disillusioned?
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I haven't bothered to watch it, but I am not at all surprised. He moved from Comedy Central to a mainstream network and he dropped the character that was 90% of what made him fun to watch. Leaving the Colbert Report was the obvious end of his career as a comedian. It is what he was and what he was good at. He was fooling to leave it. Jon Stewart at least knew full well and has stated so numerous times that he was leaving what he'd always be known for and what he did best. He basically retired with no grand aspirations to reach some higher level. He's having fun with his family now, appearing on WWE because he's a fan, etc.

Move on from Colbert. Don't expect him to do any better or be any more interesting than people like Leno or Letterman were in the role he's now in. And move on to John Oliver, who has taken up where Colbert and Stewart left off.
 
IMO the simple truth here is that stephen colbert has a lot of talents and a lot of strengths, but being a leading man just isn't one of them.
he kind of sort of occasionally managed to fake it through the colbert report because he was playing a character, but colbert himself just isn't strong enough as a leading man to carry a show.
 
The Late Night Show is a general audience show. Playing politics could be problematic for his career there.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
The Late Night Show is a general audience show. Playing politics could be problematic for his career there.
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But wasn't that the point of hiring him? CBS's viewership skews old and that's shit in terms of advertising dollars, so they wanted to bring in the Daily Show type crowd. If you nix the parts of the show which that crowd found interesting and engaging, why have Colbert as opposed to just Random Comedian #43?
 
Many good points on here.

The thing that gets me the most is that many of Colbert's promos leading up to the show were genuinely good Colbert material, e.g. his podcast about the confederate flag coming down in SC, his commentary on gay marriage rights, etc. These promos fit Colbert very well, and although they weren't exactly in his old character, they were of the same caliber as his old show. So far, the substance on his new show is just late night humdrum.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
If you nix the parts of the show which that crowd found interesting and engaging, why have Colbert as opposed to just Random Comedian #43?
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if you nix all the parts of the show that the crowd found interesting and engaging, why call it Star Trek as opposed to just Random Space Movie #43?

brand recognition - idiots think that simply having a familiar name is all you need to convey everything attached to that name that was appealing in the first place.
sadly, the fucktard masses often prove this to be true.
 
I admit to being underwhelmed as well. His start on the Colbert Report was a bit rocky if I recall.

Some perspective came this morning when I read an interview with Craig Ferguson, though...

“When you do a show on American broadcast television, not just American but any broadcast television, or maybe any television, there’s always an implication of please don’t offend the sponsor, please don’t upset the FCC, all that,” he says. “Though it was very loose—my late-night show was about as loose as you get on late-night television—there’s still a sort of institutionalized mindset that I developed, no one put it on me, but I developed in the sense that I better be careful.”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/10/why-craig-ferguson-really-left-late-night.html

Colbert was the follow-up to the Daily Show. Going from being second banana on a cable network to the lead on broadcast television is a huge leap, not just in the size of the audience, but the level of scrutiny and pressure.

It seems like he's trying too hard, and that's understandable, but I hope he finds his footing.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
I haven't bothered to watch it, but I am not at all surprised. He moved from Comedy Central to a mainstream network and he dropped the character that was 90% of what made him fun to watch. Leaving the Colbert Report was the obvious end of his career as a comedian. It is what he was and what he was good at. He was fooling to leave it.
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I saw him play a serious role on a "Criminal Intent" episode and he was freakishly believable as a criminal. Just sayin...
 
Early Letterman was no great host IIRC. And he became the Best Ever.

Maybe Colbert just needs a little time.

FWIW, I liked him better than his show.
 
He was on Howard Stern a few weeks back. Among other things, one of the more pertinent subjects was how Colbert was approaching the rivalry with the other late night shows. His attitude seemed to be one of a guy who was going downtown to meet a guy who has fully planned to beat the leaving shit out of him, but Colbert didn't have any idea he was supposed to be prepared for a fight.

One of the great things about Colbert was how edgy he could be. If anyone's every heard his bit from the White House Correspondent's Dinner, you know the guy had to have balls the size of hippity-hops to do that.

But in this show so far, he's been really soft. If he's not himself, if he doesn't grow his balls back, he's going to fail. And it's painful to watch because he is so talented.
 
I will say I am disappointed with Colbert for even considering to have Trump on the show. You can do much, much better than that.
 
I'm just not much of a TV watcher. Has the show been improving?

If not, is it possible the producers will make it more political in order to attract viewers? Because that would be deliciously subversive.
 
I haven't watched late night talk shows in several years, including the new Colbert show but...

I thought Conan O'Brian's Tonight show was just as good as his Late Late show, and I thought his Late Late show was more creative and funny than Leno's Tonight and Letterman's Late Night.

But that didn't help Conan O'Brian to keep his job.

I have never understood the appeal of Jimmy Fallon. He almost always the same character on SNL, just a generic guy. But he seems to be doing just fine on his show. Maybe it's that generic quality that gives him mainstream appeal.
 
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