Late Night Talk Round V
Posted by Primogeniture on February 22nd, 2008
The Strike is over. Woe is me.
Of course I am glad that the writer’s strike has finally ended, after all, I really need new episodes of The Office as much of LOST as I can get this year (13 episodes). It’s good news for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Both of those programs struggled without a writing staff and understandably so. But it was a different story over at NBC and Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Conan may have had the only show on television that actually got funnier without writers.
It should come as no shock to anyone that the worst parts of Late Night have always been written. Jokes are hit or miss. Always have been and always will be. Conan’s first night back with his writers showed that particular television law to remain unbroken. The “Conologue” was back with its usual variable quality. I don’t know that I should say that Late Night has bad writers, but the show’s writers certainly write bad jokes.
If only we could go back to the glory days of the strike. It couldn’t have been more amusing that an entire segment of the first show back with writers was taken up by a montage of moments from when the show did not have writers. It will take more than a year for a Late Night with writers to build up as many laugh out loud moments as that sole month contained. But at least Conan’s strike stretch ended on a high note, with him finally beating his record ring spin using teflon and a MIT physics professor.