Late Show with Stephen Colbert

He was just as funny and quick-witted and inventive as he’s ever been off-camera, and he seemed genuinely excited about hosting the show in front of an audience.

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.

It was good, it was very, very good.

Mr. Colbert’s Late Show proved smarter and more savvy than the average broadcast network talk show.

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.

Facing almost impossibly high expectations, Stephen Colbert seemingly raced through a checklist of agenda-setting moments in his mostly terrific The Late Show debut.

For a premiere, this Late Show was exceedingly polished yet loose-limbed.

Stephen Colbert’s better half generally has been the second halves of his still formative show.

Overall, this was a good start.... The show was rushed, the commercialism troubling, the interviews a mixed bag. But no one looks for perfection the first night--just signs, and they were mostly positive Tuesday.

Stephen Colbert made a rousing, late-night debut.... His jokes were hit and miss.... Colbert really hit his stride, though, during an interview with presidential candidate Jeb Bush.

He delivered the entire package with a feeling of genuine delight, which was enough to carry the audience through all the first-show jitters--an achievement none of Colbert’s competitors could claim.

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.

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.

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.

Overall, Late Show seems to be in good hands. If it was too busy, it was a busy-ness from the heart.

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.

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.

Colbert didn’t reinvent the wheel, but he took it for quite a spin, and his charisma enlivened even the bits that didn’t quite work, like his “gotcha” question to Bush about the ways in which he differs politically from his brother George.

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.

He was overeager, a tad hyper, and trying to do too many things at once. But after a bumpy start, Colbert seemed to gain in confidence as the show wore on.