I’ve always been a Letterman man. I mean, Carson was king, but he exited the game when I was 14 years old. Even when Carson was on the air I watched him because I knew Letterman was on afterwards. Letterman was relevant, irreverent, and goofy; Letterman was hip because of his un-hipness. I’ve always felt Leno was a complete bore. Similarly, I find Fallon, while at times slightly endearing, painfully hard to watch. I was sad when Letterman announced his retirement—I mean, we knew it was inevitable, but still, an era was coming to an end. When the announcement came earlier this year that Letterman’s replacement would be Stephen Colbert, I must admit I was sceptical. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge Colbert fan, however, the record of new hosts successfully taking over established late night shows was not good, at least by my count. I was worried Colbert’s “personae shift” would not work, I was worried expectations were too high, and ultimately, I was worried I would have to re-evaluate my opinion of one of my comedic heroes. Luckily, after having watched the first week (4 episodes) of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, I realized my worrying was for naught.
Author: ivanhenwood
Television: An Apology
I watch a lot of television—by my calculations too much. This wasn’t always the case. For the majority of the last 15 years I did not own a television. That all changed two years ago when my fiancée and I bought a nice big television. We bought the television because, well, it would be a hell of a lot nicer to watch than the both of us trying to cram in front of the laptop. This is not to say that I did not watch TV for fifteen years, only most of my TV viewing was restricted to what I could rent at the video store or download or stream when it became more prevalent. “So what’s the problem?” you may ask yourselves. If the existence of this blog is any indication, we live in an era when some of the best TV shows in history are being made. I strongly believe this to be true. We also, however, live in an era when more TV shows are being made than in any time in the past. For every Girls there is a Honey Boo-Boo; every Treme a Pawn Stars. The problem becomes, not that I now own a television but rather, that I now have cable to go along with the television—and extremely shitty viewing habits. Continue reading
The Golden Age of Television 