I think I need to modify my internal definition of a Talk Show. I started watching them at a time when the shows were either live or, more often, recorded in real time. If the show was ninety minutes, they rolled tape for ninety minutes and whatever happened…that was the show. They'd edit if someone said the "f" word but not for much more than that; certainly not if something went wrong. That was part of the fun of a Talk Show: Watching the host ad-lib his way around it or, if he was really facile, build something new out of the wreckage.
Hosts did ad-lib back then. So did guests. What distinguished a Talk Show from most other kinds of programming was that not everything was carefully planned. Some things were. Guests were preinterviewed and when Johnny said to one of them, "I hear you had some problem on the set recently…what was that all about?", that meant the guest was prepared to tell that anecdote — and Johnny, though he played naive, knew the story. He especially knew the punch line so that he wouldn't step on it.
And some stunts and exchanges that seemed spontaneous and improvised were planned, too. But the point is that a good Talk Show back then was supposed to feel improvised and I need to not get frustrated that they never do anymore. The premise has changed and no one's trying for a "live" feel anymore. Which is a shame because if anyone could do it today, it's Stephen Colbert.
I hope he'll get around to some of that before long but I certainly can't fault him for not risking it on opening night. The whole show felt read right off the TelePrompter and edited for a distinctly non-live feel. Reportedly, the taping went way over and many spots were retaped. I'm sure I would have known that even if it hadn't been reported.
But of course, no one was pretending that it wasn't edited. The interview with Jeb Bush especially felt cut-and-pasted and they don't care that you know that because they've put deleted moments from it up on YouTube and on the CBS site.
Given that, the interview was fine. I'm still not sure that it doesn't do a disservice to the process to allow political candidates to go out on TV and show how charming and witty they can be fielding softball questions. Colbert came a little closer than some of his brethren have to lobbing a tough one but I think his main goal (and the reason to have someone like Bush on before Bernie Sanders) was to show America that he isn't going to do a heavily Liberal show. And he also wants to not have other candidates fear coming on.
(One possibly-tough question I thought he was setting up but which he didn't ask would have gone something like this: "Governor, all your campaign ads and buttons and stickers just say 'Jeb!' Isn't that because you know a lot of people now have real problems with the last president named Bush?")
Before that, the interview with George Clooney was a bit too fawning and a bit too scripted. And before that, there was a lot of prepared material that was pretty good. The biggest surprise for me? For all the talk about discovering the "real" Stephen Colbert, it surprised me that he's pretty much like the guy on The Colbert Report but without the more ignorant right-wing lines. It's still basically a character because it's all in the Prompter.
I liked the band, though I thought they were too loud. It was like they had to play loud to be heard over the loudness of the set. I don't like the standing ovations for everything and the incessant chants of "Stephen, Stephen, Stephen!"
I'm looking forward to a lot of this shaking out and calming down. Even if it stays the same, it's a good show and I expect it'll do well. I'll be interested to see where the ratings are in a few months…and where Colbert is. I look forward to him actually hosting the show instead of reading it.