Tag Archives: Conan O’Brien

November 9, 2010 · 8:28 am

Conan the Morning After: Critics Respond to the Premiere

Conan the Morning After: “Baa Baa Blackmail”

November 9th, 2010

Despite what their titles or tags may say, no one really “reviewed” Conan last night.

While an evaluative measure may have been undertaken by numerous critics, it is always with an asterisk: yes, we all had our opinions following Conan O’Brien’s return to late night television, but making a judgment based on a single episode of a show which plans to air four episodes a week is effectively impossible.

This should not, and did not, stop critics from being critical of his performance or from offering their perspective, but it does limit critics to what I’d consider to be “personal responses.” It becomes about what expectations we had going into the broadcast, and whether or not the “Baa Baa Blackmail” (the premiere’s rather fun “title”) lived up to those expectations depends on what precisely we wanted or expected to see.

By collecting some of these responses, i hope to be able to demonstrate that Conan and late night in general are many things to many critics, and that the show is in many ways “for” the precise opposite audience.

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Who is Conan‘s Conan?: A Personal Response to TBS’ Conan

Who is Conan‘s Conan?: A Personal Response

November 8th, 2010

Watching Conan was a bit of a bizarre experience. Admittedly, I am not a regular viewer of Late Night, but Conan O’ Brien is probably the host that I enjoy the most, and so I was curious (if not necessarily outright excited) for him to return to the airwaves. And so I tuned into TBS for the debut of his new series, a debut which stems from a ridiculous and controversial transition at NBC, and…it was a bit weird.

It’s especially weird coming out of a period where the idea of Conan O’Brien, which is frankly what I would call myself a fan of, was all we had: with just a Twitter feed to sustain us, the mythology of Conan in the “Team Coco” era actually seemed to get a bit out of control. Once a cult favorite among younger demographics, stuck at 12:30, Conan has become a national symbol of the downtrodden despite becoming filthy rich in the process. As a result, while I am glad that Conan is back on television, I no longer have that sense that he exists as a counter to the establishment, as an odd duck who does what Leno does with a subversive edge that sets him apart.

Instead, Conan’s difference has become a commodity, and the result is a premiere which relies so heavily on recent history that it obscures what precipitated his rise to folk heroism in such a way that boils his act down to the past year of his career.

Which results in a funny hour of late night television, but one which fits more comfortably into broader public discourse than Conan’s history would suggest. The following is not a judgment of the series, impossible since it has aired only a single episode, but an effort to understand why I responded to the premiere in this way.

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Tagged as Analysis, Andy Richter, Basic Cable, Cable, Conan O'Brien, Late Night, Lea Michele, NBC, Premiere, Review, Series Premiere, Seth Rogen, Star, Talk Show, TBS, Team Coco, Television, Tonight Show, TV, Twitter

July 8, 2010 · 12:18 pm

The Trick is to Actually Watch TV: The 2010 Emmy Nominations

July 8th, 2010

The Emmy nominations (which you can find in full here) are less a sign of what’s truly great on television and a more a sign of what the Emmy voters have actually been watching.

Series and performers are nominated for Emmys for one of two reasons: either the Academy members watched episodes carefully and saw them deserving of an award, or they looked at their ballots and chose a familiar name, a much buzzed-about series, or the first name on the ballot. And, frankly, most years the latter seemed to be their modus operandi, to the point where I’ve started to disassociate voters with any notion of television viewership – I’m not even convinced most of them own televisions.

However, for once, I’d say that the 2010 Emmy nominations seem to have been made by people who actually enjoy the medium, with plenty of evidence to demonstrate that voters actually watched many of the shows they nominated and discovered not only the most hyped elements of that series but also those elements which are truly deserving of Emmys attention. There are still plenty of examples where it’s clear that Emmy voters didn’t truly bother to watch the series in question, and all sorts of evidence which indicates that the Emmy voters suffer from a dangerously selective memory and a refusal to let go of pay cable dramedies, but the fact remains that this is the most hopeful Emmy year in recent memory.

It isn’t that every nominee is perfect, but rather that there is evidence of Academy voters sitting down in front of their television and watching more than a single episode of the shows in question, making them less like soulless arbiters of quality and more like actual television viewers – it might not stick, but for a few moments it’s nice to finally see some nominees that indicate voters aren’t so much different from us after all.

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July 8, 2010 · 10:28 am

The 2010 Primetime Emmy Award Nominations

July 8th, 2010

[For complete analysis of the 2010 Emmy Nominees, head to my full breakdown, “The Trick is to Watch TV,” here.]

Here are the nominees for the 2010 Emmy Awards (and, for added value, my gut feelings in terms of early favourites have been bolded): for all of the awards, click here to download the Academy’s PDF.

Outstanding Drama Series

True Blood
Breaking Bad
The Good Wife
Dexter
Lost
Mad Men

Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Glenn Close (Damages)
Mariska Hargitay (Law and Order: SVU)
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)
Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights)
January Jones (Mad Men)
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer)

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights)
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter)
Jon Hamm (Mad Men)
Hugh Laurie (House)
Matthew Fox (Lost)

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Tagged as 2010, 30 Rock, Aaron Paul, Andre Braugher, Archie Panjabi, Betty White, Breaking Bad, Burn Notice, Chris Colfer, Christine Baranski, Conan O'Brien, Connie Britton, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Dexter, Elizabeth Mitchell, Emmys, Eric Stonestreet, Friday Night Lights, Glee, Hugh Laurie., Jane Lynch, John Lithgow, Julianna Margulies, Kyle Chandler, Lea Michele, Lost, Mad Men, Matthew Morrison, Michael Emerson, Mike O'Malley, Modern Family, Neil Patrick Harris, Nominations, Nominees, Nurse Jackie, Sharon Gless, Terry O'Quinn, The Big Bang Theory, The Good Wife, Tina Fey

June 5, 2010 · 2:36 am

Handicapping the 2010 Emmys: Official Ballot Miscellany

Official Ballot Miscellany

June 4th, 2010

Earlier this evening, Emmy voting officially began; this isn’t particularly important to us non-voters, but it does mean that the official ballots were released (PDFs: Performers, Writing, Directing), which means that we know who submitted their names for Emmy contention and can thus make our predictions accordingly. In some cases, this simply confirms our earlier submissions regarding particularly categories, while in other cases it throws our expectations for a loop as frontrunners or contenders don’t end up submitting at all.

For example, Cherry Jones (who last year won for her work on 24) chose not to submit her name for contention this year, a decision which seems somewhat bizarre and is currently being speculatively explained by her unhappiness with her character’s direction in the show’s final season. It completely changes the anatomy of that race, removing a potential frontrunner and clearing the way for some new contenders (or, perhaps, another actress from Grey’s Anatomy). Either way, it’s a real shakeup, so it makes this period particularly interesting.

I will speak a bit about some surprising omissions and inclusions in the categories I’ve already covered this week, but I want to focus on the categories that I haven’t discussed yet, including the guest acting categories, writing, and direction, which are some interesting races this year.

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Tagged as 2010, 24, 30 Rock, Alan Cumming, Allison Janney, Amy Poehler, Andre Braugher, Ballot, Betty White, Breaking Bad, Carlton Cuse, Cherry Jones, Christine Baranski, Comedy, Community, Conan O'Brien, Cougar Town, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Damages, Damon Lindelof, Dexter, Directing, Drama, Elaine Stritch, Elizabeth Banks, Elizabeth Mitchell, Emmys, Friday Night Lights, Glee, Guest Actor, Guest Actress, Henry Ian Cusick, How I Met Your Mother, Jack Bender, Jared Harris, Jason Alexander, Jason Winer, John Lithgow, Jon Hamm, Julianne Moore, Justin Lin, Kristin Chenoweth, Lily Tomlin, Lost, Mad Men, Martha Plimpton, Matt Damon, Megan Mullally, Men of a Certain Age, Michael Sheen, Modern Family, Modern Warfare, Neil Patrick Harris, Nominees, Nurse Jackie, Pamela Fryman, Rian Johnson, Ryan Murphy, Saturday Night Live, Shelley Long, Sons of Anarchy, Submissions, Television, The End, The Good Wife, The Office, The Pacific, Tina Fey, Titus Welliver, Treme, TV, United States of Tara, Viola Davis, Wheels, Writing, Zach Gilford

January 23, 2010 · 2:48 am

Last Night with Conan O’Brien: Goodbye to the Tonight Show

I’m sorry, Conan.

I didn’t watch your Tonight Show. At 11:35, I’m more likely to be writing about television than watching it, and for that I truly have to apologize. I was part of the problem, part of the group of people who celebrated Conan O’Brien’s rise to the Tonight Show but who never bothered to keep tuning in. I watched a few episodes early on, and enjoyed the feeling of pride that “my” host pushing out Jay Leno, but then when push came to shove I was content with knowing Conan was there.

I know it’s not my fault: even if Conan’s ratings had been incrementally better, chances are that NBC still would have made the decision to push his show back, and this whole mess would still be happening. And considering that Conan is walking away with an enormous severance package and will likely be back on our televisions within a year, it’s not as if the man himself is truly losing his job and left without a chance of success.

But there is something tragic about seeing someone robbed of doing what he loved, and robbed of doing it on the stage he always dreamed of. He left this job because he felt as if NBC was disrespecting its legacy, and like the consummate professional he is Conan showed an enormous amount of respect for both the Tonight Show’s legacy and his time at NBC in the midst of his final goodbye to the network and the show he feels he is leaving a decade too early. While no one is crying for Coco, considering the severance he received, I don’t think any of us can deny him the right to cry: his tears felt genuine, a love letter to the people who brought him to where he is and a final curtain to a run at NBC that took him from comedy writer to national sensation.

His final episode (and mine) of The Tonight Show was one hundred percent Conan, one hundred percent heartfelt, and hopefully just a small percentage of what’s to come.

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Tagged as Andy Richter, Band, Beck, Ben Harper, Billy Gibbins, CoCo, Conan, Conan O'Brien, Cowbell, Farewell, Finale Episode, Freebird, Jay Leno, Long May You Run, Max Weinberg, NBC, Neil Young, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell

January 13, 2010 · 12:33 pm

Betrayal at NBC, Colon, What REALLY happened with my Late Night Show, Question Mark, by Conan O’Brien

Watching Conan O’Brien take to the Tonight Show stage for what might be the final time, I felt emotionally conflicted. On the one hand, I want to be angry that NBC has treated him so poorly, trapping him in the middle of a business dispute and unfairly judging his show far too early for the sake of making other people happy. On the other hand, I want to show support for Conan, and being angry doesn’t entirely reflect how much I appreciate his particular brand of self-deprecation. So when Conan makes jokes about his imminent departure barring some sort of hail mary from NBC, are we supposed to boo to reflect the injustice, or are we supposed to cheer because we want CoCo to know we care?

And then I realized that for all of the emotional conflict I might be experiencing, Conan himself is having to mediate his anger with professionalism, and his sadness with comedy – for all of the verbal gymnastics we’ve been working with over the past number of weeks, trying to figure out how all of this is going to work out, it is nothing compared to what Conan O’Brien has been dealing with inside his head. So it’s that much more miraculous that what emerges in an official statement is pointed but civil, an argument not so much about what is being done to him but rather what NBC is doing to its own reputation, and to the position of the Tonight Show in its late night lineup. And, it’s that much more impressive that he proceeded to go onto his stage and be something that used to be enough to get you somewhere in this business: funny.

I don’t have much further extended thoughts that that, to be honest: while this issue is plenty fascinating, as we see how NBC deals with Conan’s departure and how long it takes Conan to end up at FOX (where it is expected he will be taking over the 11 O’Clock hour), I’m to the point where I simply want to acknowledge the cruel irony that I have paid more attention to Late Night now than I have in a very long time, and to remind everyone that Conan’s money is right on the money: while it might be easy to lay blame at the feet of Jay Leno, the problem here is a network who believes it can turn back time and who is throwing away a potential Tonight Show legacy in the process.

My one goal for the future is ensuring that this doesn’t just become a footnote in the larger story of NBC’s collapse: it is a turning point, a moment where we question the degree to which this network actually wants to craft a new identity, actually wants to climb its way out of the ratings basement. We’ll be debating about this for months, whether in terms of seeing how the network manages its late night situation or discovering just what the network will do with five hours of primetime. And yet at no point in that debate do I want us to forget that this was the time when NBC’s business decisions failed to respect someone who has been with their company for nearly two decades, tarnished the reputation of the man who they rushed out of his job sooner than he wanted in order to respect that person, and managed to end up with a bigger mess than what they started with.

I’m on Team Conan, but I’m also on Team “WTF NBC.” And something tells me that both memberships may be for life.

Cultural Observations

Conan’s show was overall quite good on the NBC bitterness front, as the briefcase gag played out as one might expect (plus, one last bit of corporate synergy), but the way it fed through the rest of the interviews was probably the real kicker.
Zachary Levi discussing teabagging in front of Tom Brokaw was just wondrously awkward.
Alan Sepinwall has a full rundown of all the late night responses to the conflict: I caught a bit of Kimmel’s Leno impression, which was bizarre in the best possible way.
Anne Helen Peterson has a great deconstruction of what “Team Conan” actually represents (which doesn’t change my affiliation, necessarily, but makes me consider it more carefully), while Felix Gillette compares the situation to Springtime for Hitler (the fictional musical from The Producers) in what is an extended analysis of the point which Jaime Weinman made last week.
James Poniewozik asks whether Jay is the “right” choice, but we also wonder whether Jay “should” take the job, and whether doing so could tarnish his reputation (which James also blogs about as Jay struggles to play the gracious winner).

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Tagged as Conan O'Brien, Entertainment, FOX, Jay Leno, Links, NBC, Team Conan, Television, The Tonight Show, TV

September 15, 2009 · 12:09 am

The Dichotomy of Spontaneous Familiarity: Reviewing The Jay Leno Show

The Dichotomy of Spontaneous Familiarity

Reviewing The Jay Leno Show

Spontaneity is not Jay Leno’s forte.

That’s really the whole point of Leno’s appeal, at the end of the day – people tuned in at 11:30 at alarming rates because of what they deemed his charming nature, making him like just another part of your nightly tradition. But in relaunching himself as part of the Jay Leno Show, which started tonight on NBC and which will air five nights a week until…well, we don’t quite know.

See, what’s strange about The Jay Leno Show is that they want it to seem spontaneous. They want it to seem like an old variety show, with special guests and different bits and no stuffy desk. So when Leno walks out to his new set, a group of people “spontaneously” rush the stage and crowd around to high five their favourite talk show host for a set period of time. It is true that the crowd seems to enjoy having Jay back, but he’s stuck in a really weird place: he has to appeal to those same viewers while enticing entirely new demographics (who weren’t watching his show before) to tune in. As such, he needs to be appear spontaneous in order to broaden his appeal, and yet at the same time not actually be spontaneous at all so as to appease the crowd who watched him so religiously and who will soon have other options (like CBS’ crime shows, which tend to appeal to the same crowd).

In the end, as a hardened critic who’s on the lower end of the key demographic and who has never particularly enjoyed Leno’s brand of comedy, I wasn’t a fan. However, the problem with the show is that it seemed desperate to try to make me into a fan, a position which was neither spontaneous nor charming, and as such my verdict is clear: on every measurable scale of subjective observation, the Jay Leno Show is an egotistical failure.

But if it turns into an economic success, trust that we’ll be dealing with it for a while.

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Tagged as 10pm, Apology, Barack Obama, Cheaters, Conan O'Brien, Entertainment, Headlines, Interview, Jay Leno, Jay-Z, Jerry Seinfeld., Kanye Cries, Kanye West, Kevin Eubanks, Leno, NBC, Oprah Winfrey, Premiere, Ratings, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Television, TV, Video

June 2, 2009 · 1:46 am

Late Night Changeover: The Debut of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien

TonightShowConan I don’t feel that I’m really qualified to be “reviewing” the first hour of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.

First of all, I don’t actually watch much Late Night television: I’ll check out the odd monologue, or watch the occasional comedy sketch, but for the most part the focus on interviews has become more and more irrelevant in our information overload culture. My generation just doesn’t watch as much late night comedy, and when we do it’s Stewart/Colbert before it’s Leno/Letterman.

Second, if I did watch Late Night television, it wasn’t The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The show was everything that was wrong with late night: Leno wasn’t actually all that funny, and while he was good at getting the “right” interview for his guests’ promotional needs that isn’t exactly a reason for me to tune in. Considering that I don’t like Leno to begin with, and that he’s ruining NBC’s schedule (that’s all I’ll say on that subject), I can’t really judge this based on whether Conan lives up to Leno’s legacy (which I don’t really respect to begin with, it appears).

And third, I think Conan O’Brien is a hilarious human being, his awkwardness representing a great connecting point for me as a viewer; whether his taste in music, his taste in guests, or more recently his gut-busting comedy he managed during the strike without any writers, Conan has consistently impressed me at every turn. Although certainly not young, Conan has nonetheless been the host who felt most in touch with my generation’s late night needs.

So, really, what am I going to say that I couldn’t tell you before the show airs: I’m going to think Conan is funny, I’m going to think he’s funnier than Letterman, and my lack of nostalgia for Leno’s Tonight Show means I think it’s legacy has actually been more or less saved pop culturally speaking. As a result, it is with all objectivity out the window that I tell you that Conan O’Brien is still Conan O’Brien, the Tonight Show is different than it used to be, and one would hope that this improvement would be reflected in the show’s success.

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