Stephen Colbert has just signed a five-year deal to take over The Late Show when David Letterman retires next year. Said CBS President Les Moonves, “Stephen Colbert is one of the most inventive and respected forces on television. David Letterman’s legacy and accomplishments are an incredible source of pride for all of us here, and today’s announcement speaks to our commitment of upholding what he established for CBS in late night.”
I don’t know why this never occurred to me, probably because I thought his contract with Comedy Central would preclude him, but this is perfect. It will be sad to lose the one-two punch of The Daily Show and Colbert Report, but he’s gone from a correspondent on the first to making the latter show every bit as good as the first. I think he’ll do a fantastic job. As a matter of fact, he’s the first in all these replacements whose show I would actually want to see. In a perfect world, he’d be going head-to-head with Conan for a generation, but this is a home run, CBS!
Killing Time 
I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but the only person who could have possibly followed Letterman’s act is Zach Galifinakis.
This is the end of an era, big time. I mean, Johnny’s departure was the beginning of the end, but Letterman’s departure is the end of the end. The days of larger-than-life personalities are past. There is no event television anymore. Even the quality cable series can be binged on with the help of Netflix. And so the world changes.
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Zach Galfinakis? I totally disagree. Colbert has proven himself as a comedian and an interviewer and has a genuine respect for the legacy that all the other new hosts lack. I think he’ll stand alone in a sad sea of pretenders. Event TV still exists, the definition has changed and become more specialized. Last Sunday, the premiere of Game of Thrones certainly felt like event TV to me. It’s rarer, no doubt, but I think it is still there. Now are you done with Clone Wars yet so I can dump a list of ninety shows on you?
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I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I’m ready. I’m actually looking forward to catching up on a lot of really good television over the course of the coming year. After Winter Soldier I regret not following Agents of Shield. I need to catch up on that so I can watch it concurrently with the movies.
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Oh we’re going to spoiler talk that movie soon because Marvel just spilled everything in the Tuesday episode following. All the fallout was in that episode. It’s so cool to go back and forth and have it woven into the MCU like that.
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Also, Galifinakis is the funniest comedian alive, and he is so idiosyncratic that he reminds me of Letterman back in the Late Show days, when Dave was still kind of raw and his act had not yet been codified. I would never have thought of choosing Colbert in a million years, but now that he has the job he seems kind of safe. You might remember that Leno was once really funny—before he took over for Johnny.
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Yes, but Colbert is not pure evil incarnate.
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