Apologies in advance for using the word "dystopia" — yeah, I'm sick to death of it too — but I can't help but think of it when I see The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (Sept. 8) debuting in the same month as The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Sept. 28). If it were 2004 and you saw those two things, you'd think you had fallen into some vengeful universe where The Colbert Report and The Daily Show didn't exist to carry you through a world in which both George W. Bush and Michele Bachmann got to sign important documents.
But yes, this day has come. We as a nation must move on and embrace a change that we have fiercely resisted — something that, ironically, is an inherently conservative trait.
(The terrorists have won.)
I'm an unabashed super-fan of The Colbert Report, finding zero fault in it ever, but I did have a problem with Jon Stewart on occasion, thinking him mawkish and butt-kissy with guests and extremely predictable in his comedic styling. Still, my initial reaction to his replacement, Trevor Noah, was the same as a lot of people's — head-scratching wonderment.
John Oliver sat in during Stewart's sabbatical and did a noble job, eventually landing his own gig on HBO, so I figured whoever permanently replaced Stewart would have been a long-time regular on the show as well. Nope. Instead they chose a South African comic who no one had ever heard of (though he'd made appearances on The Daily Show since December of 2014). Comedy Central's announcement was immediately hit with a barrage from the PC crowd that found fault in Noah's allegedly racist tweets about the Jews. Here's the deal: Noah was raised in Soweto at the nadir of apartheid. His mother was shot in the face by his stepfather. The dude has lived. All of his stand-up is about race and identity politics, and watching it made me like him instantly. His delivery is more about storytelling than slapstick, and he's engaging and endearing. So I will give him a chance on The Daily Show.
It's not like this is the first time we've had to adjust to a new host. Perhaps a few of you will remember when Craig Kilborn ran it — I still crack up when I think of him using "Coeur D'Alene, I-da-ho" as an entire adjective. I mourned his departure but adjusted.
What's harder for me is the new Colbert persona, which is ostensibly the real Colbert, and not a parody of Bill O'Reilly. Even Colbert seems a bit lost in his "new/old" identity, so much so that he even created a feature on The Late Show called "Who Am Me?", which will delve into this very question.
Promos depict a man who's still finding his feet. One features him chatting with Neil DeGrasse Tyson about Pluto, at times jumping between ironic joshing and straightforward kookiness. (He does avoid Uranus jokes, even after Tyson talks about "big and gassy" planets, which makes him a far better man than I.) But the best pre-show promo involves Colbert taking the helm of a public access TV show in Michigan called Only in Monroe. This is vintage Colbert, poking fun at corny local television, which could just as easily have been a bit on The Report. This clip (available on YouTube) is the funniest of all, especially when Eminem shows up.
In short, I don't even think Late Show knows how this new show is going to shake out, but these things generally take time to find their groove, anyway. When David Letterman's first late-night reign began in the early '80s, it was truly maverick. Wry, in-the-know culture geeks who loved sharp comedy tuned their VCRs to a younger, hipper version of Johnny Carson. From there, everyone attempted to replicate the Letterman formula, and to my mind, only Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel have come close. Shit, not even Letterman was as good as Letterman, after a while.
So, will Colbert be as good as Colbert? We shall see.
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