The current state of late night talk television...

Not to beat the same ol' drum, but without David Letterman and Craig Ferguson it seems like a wasteland.
Fallon - seems like a nice kid but I can't stand the kitsch, the sucking up, the lip synchs, his whole aesthetic. Obviously it works in the ratings.
Meyers - see above, only worse. Boring delivery, no emotion, and no budget.
Kimmel - I want to like Kimmel. He's trying to mix what Letterman/Carson did with what the new kids are doing but it just seems a kid who got a talk show because ABC wanted one and couldn't find anyone else.
Conan - poor guy. All the talent in the world and he is free from the constraints of the networks but he seems to be coasting on fumes and it shows. He's almost sad to watch at this point. Every once in a while he'll have a flash of brilliance to remind you what he once was.
Corden - who the heck made this hire? And what is CBS doing to him? No Dave so they rerun CSI shows from 11:35 - 12:35 and think people are going to tune in? This poor guy won't have an audience left when Colbert comes to town!
Colbert - will it work? I hope so, but I can't see CBS winning in the ratings war and I think Colbert's sophisticated wit will sail over the heads of mainstream America. The guy is a comic GENIUS but America wants dumb and milquetoast.

Long story short, I think this is a dead venue in 10 years. The Golden Era of Late Night has ended.

 

Josh Wolf has a late night TV talk show on CMT on M-F.

 

Not my cup of tea, but it is good to point out that the whole time slot isn't a void. I actually really like what Tavis Smiley and Charlie Rose do for example. Take's me back to what Tom Snyder and Bob Costas did.

 

The time of Late night talk shows has come and gone. Not only are the hosts not what they were but today's "stars" just lack personalities. In truth, I tuned out 10 years ago, there is way too much to chose from to be stuck watching the big 3.

 

Maybe I'm old, but I also think these guys are killing themselves by "going viral." Why would I watch a show at 12:35 when I watch the best 10 minutes the next morning on my cell phone. I realize we're at a weird phase where broadcast television and cable television are trying to fit in with the internet and streaming services but it's like buying a cable ad for a radio show in 1985. It just doesn't make sense to me. But yeah, I agree. The Tonight Show is no longer the revered place it was and The Late Show was really just created so Dave could have his show and lampoon NBC while CBS paid to do whatever he wanted for 22 years. I just don't see this current crop being much of anything in the grand scheme of things.

 

I agree with pretty much everything you just wrote.

 

Well, if you still want the intelligence angle that Dave obviously possessed and that the new guard obviously lack, Tavis Smiley and Charlie Rose seem to be the only games left in town...

I don't know Josh Wolf at all, so I cannot include him.

 

Fallon is so terrible. I disagree that he has a winning formula though; I think any reason for success would be attributed to the time slot and people being habituated to the Tonight Show. People aren't too picky at that hour before bed; it's a shame, because Fallon is so grating with all of his forced cuteness.

 

Josh Wolf used to be on Chelsea Lately

 

excitement and interest of old gone

 

Occasionally I will watch Kimmel for 5 to 10 min, but I've been watching Charlie Rose for the past 20 plus years. He is the only one worth my time. If I'm in the mood for something lighter I will find an old TV rerun or movie before I'd bother with late night talk shows.

 

Conan is being neglected as far as I'm concerned. Yes, I understand he got millions in buyout from NBC and also probably gets a good chunk of change from TBS, but I don't mean money. It simply makes no sense to me that Kimmel and Fallon are on the major networks while Conan is slumming it on TBS. No way Fallon should have the Tonight Show over Conan right now, in my opinion.

The only funny thing I've seen Kimmel do is the segment "Celebrity Tweets", and those don't even involve him on screen. The monologue and the skits featuring him are not funny to me at all, but somehow he gets a lot of his Hollywood pals to be in them. He's obviously well-liked, but he's a medium comedic talent at his absolute best. Even his timing for punch lines and the like is off. He runs through a joke like your not-good-at-telling-jokes friend would do it.

 

I'll take your word for it as I don't watch late night talk shows (not since Carson anyway), but I had to give you props for the usage of the word milquetoast.

 

Mark Evanier writes on his blog about this article, which says that despite Letterman going off the air, the other 11:35 talk shows (aka "The Two Jimmys") have not benefitted in the ratings:

http://www.mediapost.com/publicatio...ratings-indicate-two-jimmies-have-not-in.html

The theory is that the older-skewing audience that used to watch Dave is just going to bed an hour early and isn't watching anything. Very interesting problem. I don't see a solution for this, and while I think Stephen Colbert is a very talented man, I'm not sure he's going to perk up the ratings like CBS wants.

 

It's 11:59 and 59 seconds, this happened on television @midnight, because our local channel plays The Daily/Nightly Show at 6:30PM (Tue-Fri) and Last Week Tonight on Monday. Actually, I quite like Jon Oliver's show. We no longer get Conan down here. In place of "The Late Show" they are currently playing reruns of "The Good Wife", but "The Late Late Show" is on their sub-channel in the same time slot as "The Late Show". Jimmy Fallon is only occasionally funny so I never watch him. I think he's great doing a scripted, acting sketch but as a host, I prefer Josh Robert Thompson's impersonation.

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Oh, man, do I miss those guys!​

 

Huge Letterman fan here, hence the "don't want to beat the same ol' drum" in my first post...other than Bill Maher, which doesn't count because he's on HBO at 10 once per week, my tv hasn't seen a late night talk show since May 20th. I watched Dave off and on, mostly on but certainly not every night, for the better part of 30 years. Now, I just see myself happily going to sleep around 9:00 pm.

 

What perplexes me the most about Kimmel is that he very openly admits to praying at the altar of Letterman, especially in the 80's, but I see NOTHING of this in his show or his "comedy". Kimmel, to me at least, most resembles someone who watched Leno for the last 20 years and took copious notes.

When I watch(ed) shows like MTV's long-canceled Wonder Showzen, Zach Galifianakis' Between Two Ferns and Billy On The Street starring Billy Eichner, now THOSE are programs I see being heavily influenced by Letterman's comedic style some 30 years later, but Kimmel....NOTHING.

 

times are all messed up for you
does the picture look like this?

sorry. couldn't resist

 

Fallon -
watch the monolog.
everything else is getting old, same stuff.
and he want's to be a rock star. that's getting real old.

OK the first couple of times...

 

Kimmel is also a huge Howard Stern fan and has been on the show many times and said that Howard is among the all-time best interviewers ever. Kimmel used to be very edgy and off-color in his radio shows (like The Man Show with Adam Carolla), but he's definitely gotten a lot more "mass-market" for his ABC show. Maybe when he's confronted with Colbert in the fall, he'll go in a different direction.

I agree, though, I haven't been compelled to watch any of the 11:35 shows in at least 4-5 years. There's so much else on, I just don't gots the time and kind of lost interest.

 

Dave was the greatest of the late night guys for me, so I'm lost right now. As much as I like Jimmy Fallon, the shtick wears thin fairly quickly - the silly games and constant fawning. Kimmel wants to be that classic late night guy, but doesn't have the skills. Conan, meanwhile, is marginalized by trying to compete with the network guys while on TBS. Seth Meyers was one of my favorites on SNL, and is capable enough, but there's no danger of him becoming the next Letterman or Carson. The late nigh talk world may not be a total wasteland these days, but it ain't exactly compelling entertainment either.

 

John Oliver is great as well, yes. When does Chelsea Handler's Netflix show begin?

 

Well, he does get his relatives and studio people involved on camera, which is what Dave used to do, at least with his mom, and then Biff Henderson, etc. I think he's definitely influenced by Letterman, but I still don't think he's all that great of a host.

 

Kimmel is the guy we all want to like, but he's just not that good. ABC probably neuters him a bit - or do they? They were publicly shunned by Letterman you have to think they wanted a show that would be "better" than what Dave did...