CBS TO LET COLBERT BE COLBERT (WHOEVER THAT IS):
But, of course, it was more than that. It was about whether they could pull off one of the most intriguing experiments in late-night television history; whether Mr. Colbert, who became a leading voice in American political satire by playing a fictional character on his Comedy Central show — holding forth before a cable congregation of the converted — could succeed as himself in the big broad tent of network television, whose commercial and corporate imperatives can be homogenizing.
CBS and Mr. Moonves have hundreds of millions of dollars riding on the result, not to mention corporate pride. Mr. Colbert has something more personal on the line: his reputation as a comedic actor who used his longtime perch at Comedy Central to show how integrity, grace and wicked intelligence could inject something politically powerful — and powerfully funny — into the late-night lineup of stupid pet tricks and vapid celebrity interviews.
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John Oliver and Bill Maher have made their marks on HBO, but their shows are not nightly, and have not alleviated the sense that Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart are badly missed in the face of all the Trumpmania. That’s why you see headlines such as “Calling Jon Stewart: American Needs You Now More Than Ever” (the liberal website Daily Kos) or declarations like the one made by the former Variety editor Peter Bart, who said that “at the moment of truth” — this election — Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart “hid in their foxholes” by leaving Comedy Central.
It’s pretty odd when you think about it. It’s like saying, “No one has replaced Stephen Colbert, not even Stephen Colbert,” when, in fact, he’s on television every weeknight, just not as the jingoistic Conservative talk show host alter ego he employed on Comedy Central.
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Of course Mr. Colbert knew what he signed up for when he took the job David Letterman held for more than two decades. He seemed sincere last August when he told GQ he was eager to shed his “Colbert Report” character. The great irony is that Mr. Colbert is still learning how to be himself on television after nine years of pretending to be someone else.
Whether it’s Carson, Letterman and Leno, or Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, the traditional path to power in show business involves posing as a friendly, often Midwestern fresh face marketed to appeal to the entire country; it’s only after being successfully ensconced in the gig that we find out that he leans to the left. In retrospect – the performer has to be to have survived being vetted by the corporate boardrooms in Manhattan and Hollywood for his superstar TV gig. (Barring that, he will allow himself to be molded into one if he wants the gig bad enough.) Colbert might be the first late night talk show host hired with a C.V. and past history of political broadcasting that alienates half the country, because they know how much he loathes Middle America. Or as Sonny Bunch of the Washington Free Beacon tweets, “It’s weird that a political comedian dedicated to mocking half the country isn’t working out as a late night host.”
But then, those who fail to watch HBO’s The Late Shift are doomed to repeat it.