Outfoxing the Competition

The late night landscape has been nothing to brag about for the last 10 years. Saturday Night Live has been awful. Leno has been in cruise control, adding an occasional stolen bit to freshen up the show. Letterman has similarly had very few notable moments. The Palin exchange was vintage Letterman, but then things were back to normal until the sex scandal hit. People thought this would damage Letterman, but in fact I believe it actually helped. Finally one of these hosts was exposing some kind of reality on his show. Feelgood stories about his heart operation and his fatherhood failed to sustain the interest. Now Letterman seems a little dangerous, and the recent late night wars episodes have further invigorated him with an anything goes attitude.

Leno's failure at 10:00 really amounted to one thing-Leno was a success because of his monologue. That monologue wasn't going to drive his show at this earlier time slot. Instead of having the option to watch Leno's show for the first 15 minutes before falling asleep, now they were forced to find something entertaining for the entire hour, something that Leno's show has never provided. With that in mind, there is no way that Leno was going to grow his audience at 10:00, which is what he needed to do if it was going to successfully lead in to the local news.

Conan's "failure" occurred for many reasons. Leno's lousy ratings at 10:00 led to a domino effect for the NBC shows later in the night. Never mind that Conan had to compete with Leno for guests. The guests that were booked on Conan were often exactly the type that were booked on Leno's Tonight Show-vapid starlets with nothing interesting to say. The edge was gone, replaced by a vanilla coating.

Leno's return to the Tonight Show might prove disastrous for NBC. A month after his return we will know what damage has been done to the Tonight Show viewership. A big fall in the ratings will receive a lot of press, and a loss to Letterman would be devastating. Even if Leno manages to recapture most of his viewers, it is still going to be a steady decline from here on out, as the lionshare of his viewers are over 50.

Most people are saying that it is a done deal that Conan will go to Fox. That might very well be true, but I don't know that this is the best move for him. First, the 11:00 slot will not be available on many Fox affiliates, as they already run lucrative shows like TMZ and Everybody Loves Raymond. Second, the lead in is not going to be that good at 11:00, thanks to an awkward prior hour where the news starts at 10:00 and a random syndicated show is sandwiched between the news and Conan. Why not go to Comedy Central? Conan would fit well with that channel's targeted demographic. Stewart and Colbert would have to air an hour earlier, but I think their ratings would hold up against the broadcast network dramas. The problem with Comedy Central is that they might not have the budget for this type of show. But this would be the most well known two hour block of programming outside of the broadcast networks and the news channels. I think it would work.

The Dancing Waters, aka The Prancing Fluids

I must have seen his show at a friend's house, because I don't remember my parents ever watching Late Night with David Letterman. It was around 1986/87 when I started regularly watching Letterman. I say regularly, but at first that was probably only during the summer, as I had to get up at a ridiculous time to go to school. At some point my Letterman viewing became an every night occurrence, as did after-school naps. The genius of the show was its irreverence, whether it involved Chris Elliot coming out as Marlon Brando or having Teri Garr take a shower. Guests were not worshiped, as Shirley MacLaine and Cher could attest. When Letterman moved to 10:30 at CBS, things were different. The show was watered down, and Letterman was not his cantankerous self. I had better things to do while in college anyway, so that was one more hour in which to do those things. Meanwhile, Leno had taken over The Tonight Show. Leno's monologue was strong, probably a result of Leno's mastery of standup comedy. Letterman, on the other hand, only did two or three throwaway jokes in his Late Night monologue. It was pretty clear that Letterman did not like standup comedy, even though he had done it for a few years back in the 1970s. Nevertheless, Letterman started doing a Tonight Showesque monologue as soon as he took over The Late Show. The differences in the monologues I think was the main reason that Leno eventually commanded a larger audience. Meanwhile, people looked past Leno's horrible interviewing skills and his inability to come up with original comedy bits.

Conan O'Brien was awful when he first started at Late Night. But then he developed a rapport with Andy, and the strong writing overcame the other deficiencies. I thought Conan was in trouble when Andy left, but he held on well enough to command a shot at The Tonight Show. To be cont.

Get Another Guy to Direct!

I'm not sure what happened with Sherlock Holmes. Was the screenplay really this bad, or were the action scenes added in/expanded? The original Holmes stories were more drama than anything, and definitely not action stories. To have Holmes (and Watson, for that matter) duking it out with criminals is ridiculous, and worse than that, boring. I'm watching for the mystery, for the suspense, for the genius solution to the conundrum. Even the solution was weak. I would have enjoyed those two hours much more by reading a couple Doyle stories for the third or fourth time.

Reading is Bad.

I'm probably going to sound like an elitist snob, and this is not the first time. Twilight is not meant for me. I realize that. That doesn't mean I can't be annoyed by its popularity, especially when it is unwarranted popularity. I'm not sure what fad is worse-the Jonas Brothers or The Twilight Series. I'm going to say The Twilight Series, because it has older devotees and has yet to be skewered by South Park (unless I missed that episode). Are the books really that bad? I guess I'll never know, because I will never read them. Why, other than the fact that I am a heterosexual male? Because the writing is just awful. Certain standards should be followed, whether a book is meant for teenagers or adults. For example, take a look at the following passages, and consider how wretched the author's writing must have been before the editor fixed the worst parts-

I was about to take advantage of the fact that he hadn't gotten around to setting me back on my feet and that his wits-scramblingly beautiful face was only inches away when he said, "We're lucky Esme thought to add an extra room. No one was planning for Ness—Renesmee."

I could really appreciate him now—could properly see every beautiful line of his perfect face, of his long, flawless body with my strong new eyes, every angle and every plane of him. I could taste his pure, vivid scent on my tongue and feel the unbelievable silkiness of his marble skin under my sensitive fingertips.

They came in a rigid, formal formation.