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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
22
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Sep 25, 2015
Season 1 Review:
This new version of The Late Show is a program I could fall in love with. There was a lot to love on Tuesday night.... Colbert's monologue was good, the energy was great. George Clooney's appearance was fine. The closing musical number, featuring musical director Jon Batiste and his band, Stay Human, along with Brittany Howard, Buddy Guy, Ben Folds, Derek Trucks and Colbert himself--was wonderful.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
One thing is immediately clear about Stephen Colbert as the anchor of The Late Show: He’s very good at it. It’s impossible to take the measure of a show based on the first episode, but given the most superficial of impressions, the immediate takeaway is assurance. Colbert has this in the bag; it’s now just a question of letting him do his thing.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
The jokes were mostly solid, but anodyne. Colbert projected enthusiasm, but it felt like he was in a hurry to get through the segment and to the desk.... The guest interviews were not great... For the premiere of the new Late Show to be a success, Colbert, like those guys, needed to convince us that he was having fun. And like the other Stephen Colbert did for so long, he needed to make us have fun watching him. Mission accomplished.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
Promising aspects of opening night were the interactions with Jon Batiste and the Stay Human band, the Oreo cookie binge as a metaphor for indulging in Donald Trump jokes, the nods to both Letterman and Jimmy Fallon, and the peek at what Colbert will be without his Comedy Central blowhard conservative mask. The George Clooney “interview,” not so much.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
Colbert’s first episode generally stuck to late-night conventions--the monologue, banter from behind a desk, interviews, and band were all present and accounted for--but it tweaked and teased them in heartening ways, especially for a debut. The show looked and felt like late night, but a more wild, antic, theatrical version, especially once Colbert got off his feet and got behind that desk.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
That said, the first Colbert Late Show--four months after David Letterman’s retirement--was promising if not perfect, ranging from sharp meta-late-night humor and funny politically tinged bits to the kind of bland chitchat that makes the network late-night talk show an often frustrating genre.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
There were some nerves--how could there not be?--and there were plenty of flashes of the wickedly smart and super-fast comedic intellect he’s honed over the years. Did it all work? Of course not. But what I liked most was the feeling that Colbert was going to reveal a side of himself that he didn’t get to show much on the Colbert Report or even The Daily Show.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
The overabundance of the first Late Show With Stephen Colbert may be a flaw then, but it’s also the best reason to be excited for the second, and the next hundred. This show may not completely know what it is yet, but it knows exactly who its host is: a smart, curious, playful entertainer who’s delighted to be there.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
The marquee interviews, taken as a whole, were Colbert's weak point--the Bush interview went longer in reality and felt rushed when edited. And Colbert's talk with George Clooney just fell flat.... What did work was the overall vibe--enthusiastic, encompassing, high-energy and with healthy dose of quirk.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
Eager to please, Colbert did a few comic bits at the outset (two product placement pieces fell flat) and got plenty of mileage out of Donald Trump. But his best moments were planned ones.... Too often, though, Colbert seemed like a dad trying to be hip with his kids’ friends.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
Not everything in the first show worked. A too-long segment involving a magic amulet that segued into a commercial for hummus (apparently actual, paid product placement) felt odd, but not unlike many "Colbert Report" bits. An appearance by George Clooney, with nothing to promote, also fell a bit flat. The Bush interview was more successful, although Colbert seemed over-caffeinated or perhaps just over-excited to finally be on the air.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
He'll need to relax a bit: As you might expect, given the stakes and the hype, he seemed a bit over-caffeinated. But calm will almost certainly come with time.... Colbert's chat with Clooney felt oddly stilted, with uncertain transitions from serious topics to prearranged comedy. He actually seemed more at ease with his second guest, Governor Bush.
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Sep 9, 2015
Season 1 Review:
The monologue had some fairly tired jokes about being at CBS (even the bit where Les Moonves kept switching the telecast over to "Mentalist" scenes evoked Conan O'Brien's old "Walker Texas Ranger" Lever gag), both Colbert and George Clooney struggled to feign interest in their interview, and even the livelier conversation with Jeb Bush suffered from being so heavily edited.... His take on the format wasn't boring--the opening credits, which made Manhattan look like the world's largest dollhouse, and the music of Jon Batiste and Stay Human, were both marvelous--but nor was it exciting enough to make me set a season pass for the kind of show I long since lost interest in.
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