The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2015-????)

he's been really grossly smarmy in interviews, i find it really off putting. intermittently there will be a jolt of old colbert but otherwise he's so overly gushing. it's bad.

so the CBS computers kept crashing as they were editing Tuesday night, and premiere almost didn't air on time. That woulda been nagl.

all shows take some time to find themselves, sez me who hasn't seen a minute of this

intermittently there will be a jolt of old colbert but otherwise he's so overly gushing

I'm sure they're all trying to make a point and they want those not familiar with Colbert to see him as an approachable friendly person. But Fallon's got the ass-kissing nice guy market cornered so it'd be better for Colbert to continue playing the smartest guy in the room.

xp That's true, and I'm sure the show will find a nice groove before long.

I think the thing that's making me most uncomfortable about it is the set. There's way too much going on. Catwalks, spiral staircases, nooks and coves and a smaller-than-usual alley between the desk set and the band set where the monologue takes place. It feels claustrophobic and maze-like.

maybe Colbert will be the one to take down Trump. guesting later in sept

he's been really grossly smarmy in interviews, i find it really off putting. intermittently there will be a jolt of old colbert but otherwise he's so overly gushing. it's bad.

― J0rdan S., Friday, September 11, 2015 10:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i think i get this. like during the jeb interview he said something like "there is a non-zero chance that i would vote for you" and then said nearly the same thing in the thursday night monologue. also maybe a calculated attempt to distance the new character from the old but definitely self-important/off putting.

He also said "On the last show I played a narcissistic conservative, now I just play a narcissist."

That non-zero chance bit is a favorite with some engineer types. But negative numbers are also non-zero.

i'm not asking him to be letterman or something but i feel like colbert swung hard back in the other direction and it really doesn't even seem genuine to me. i dunno maybe i'm just being really coldhearted but the solemness of the biden interview was laid on soooooooo thick.

but also like, he had on the uber guy and started off by telling this glowing story about the first time he got an uber, it was just weird and uncrticial and based in the sort of fantasy land that colbert existed to puncture! with fallon it's one thing because he came from a different arm of comedy, there should not really be an expectation of him doing prickly interviews that might actually illuminate an issue relevant to the world. and fallon doesn't even really have those sorts of people on. but colbert has purposefully loaded his first week with politicians and businessmen who to some extent control the future of the world and to what end has that produced literally anything worthwhile? to bring those people on and then kiss their ass really serves no purpose. if you're gonna do the happy go lucky late night thing just have on celebrities and keep it moving.

Nah you can still celeb pander and hold a network talk show wo stooping to Fallon levels of grovelling.

maybe Kissinger on his CC show was an omen

was deeply moving to see biden struggle with his grief.

sorry, that wasn't in response to anything above, just a stray note.

Not sure I see an issue with Colbert being acerbic with a politician on the campaign trail, empathetic with a public figure undergoing grief, and nonsensical with movie stars who don't have anything to promote.

he wasn't acerbic with jeb bush though -- he told him he might vote for him!!

In the same sense Jim Carrey has a chance with Lauren Holly in Dumb and Dumber.

And I see him inviting entrepreneurs onto this high-profile first week as a move toward elevating them to celebrity status, and surreptitiously cutting business-as-usual movie stars down to size (tho mentioning Darfur to Clooney and then not giving him a chance to actually say anything about it was nagl).

Also, that Kendrick Lamar set.

the biden thing, whatever. i dunno. it wasn't the subject of the interview but the fawning. he kept saying things like "service to your country" that just give me the willies

But I'll grant that we're asking for some level of personality consistency from the man behind the desk because that's almost literally the only one important thing a late show host has to provide.

Somehow it passed me by until now that Colbert teaches Sunday School. Is that a detail that was fed to the media in this image makeover campaign?

xp yeah during the jeb interview there was a point where he was really needling him about his motto in a funny way and walked him right into a huge laugh line but then the rest of the interview was like, "jeb i feel like you can fix the scourge of partisanship in washington"

I didn't get that sense (e.g. "you do know Vito Corleone was the villain right?") but then again I know plenty of people who think Colbert dumping a vat Sabra hummus over Jeb's head would've been a fair and balanced interview.

i guess i'm not looking for him to necessarily filet the guy, i think the bigger problem is that his serious questions aren't even interesting. to jeb: "why do you want to be president?" to biden: "how did your faith help you?"

Somehow it passed me by until now that Colbert teaches Sunday School. Is that a detail that was fed to the media in this image makeover campaign?

This is way old news. He's a super-active Catholic and he's been teaching Sunday School at least since his time on The Daily Show.

It does seem like he needs to relearn the art of non-arch interviewing skills.

Or, you know, just admit that "Colbert" was really Colbert and go back to playing each and every one of his interview subjects for fools.

i guess he was just thanking Joe for writing the Patriot Act?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/surveillance-joe#.neNXawxbd

I'm sorry his son died. He's as big a shit as Jeb.

it was kind of a weird choice to make. to make it the saddest interview with a vice-president in history. i'm sure biden would have yucked it up about the presidential race if colbert had wanted to.

he'll be back if the Dem dons draft him to torpedo Sanders.

xp yeah & it's not like his son died *super* recently? we've seen biden perform his grief. whatever a lot of people thought it was compelling. the angle i see in that conceptually is that colbert and biden both lost several members of their families in an accident but biden was the one who had to even make that connection known

"Colbert" was such an extremely well-defined character, but if you've seen non-Report interviews he's done with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Oprah and Letterman and whoever else, you realize the differences between the character and the real Colbert are so small. "Colbert" is more like hard liquor, and Colbert is like a glass of lemonade. Both drinks, each leaves you feeling different afterwards.

Love the phrase "a lot of people." It's so exactly how it sounds.

xp yeah & it's not like his son died *super* recently?

I know, right? That was all the way back on May 30th! That was eons ago here on Internet World!

yeah, we've all seen you perform your grief, biden, give us something new!

yeah, i can have deep reservations about biden as a politician and public figure and still empathize with his grief. there's a mirror neuron thing happening there, you see his face crumple and it's hard not to moved.

no father should bury his son, it's a horrible thing. biden has some real responsibility for that happening to many other fathers, as he voted for the second iraq war.

Imagining that as a follow-up question right now. It's playing weird.

I only learned yesterday that Colbert lost his dad and brothers in a plane crash as a young man. I guess it's common knowledge?

I think I heard about it back when the Colbert Report began

Not a young man -- he was 10. xp

I did not know that. I did know he is a Catholic who teaches Sunday School and always thought it was cool bc he would do stories about religious hypocrisy by using his knowledge to quote and distort Bible verses in a way that subverted them and hinted at a more compassionate, progressive, rational Christianity. The week after he left the whole anti-gay Christian pizza place story hit and he was sorely missed.

I learned about the crash through wikipedia one night, as I was browsing plane crashes by year (as one does.)

whoa, check out the date: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_212

he wasn't acerbic with jeb bush though -- he told him he might vote for him!!

― J0rdan S., Friday, September 11, 2015 3:12 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Didn't he also preface a question by saying "Say there is a non-zero percent chance I vote for you..."?

Biden interview was good, too bad Joe had nothing to say

Didn't he also preface a question by saying "Say there is a non-zero percent chance I vote for you..."?

― Evan, Friday, September 11, 2015 4:57 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah that's what i mean except i don't think he even said "say" -- he was just like "there's a non-zero chance i vote for you"

I remembered it as "say" because it prefaced a question about that hypothetical scenario iirc. "There's a non-zero chance I vote for you" is just a statement.

Paul Simon's voice is completely shot at this point.

Jon Batiste's suit tonight >>>>

I feel like the band on this show were wormholed in from the early 1990s.

Colbert's attempts at humor last night were not that funny. Plus his singing with Paul Simon was worse than Fallon joining in with musicians