The problem with late-night television is that it has always pretended to be informal. The band riffing during commercials, the desk, the loose tie, and the host acting as though the cue cards aren’t there. Thus, the informality vanished when five of the biggest names in the genre chose to share a stage in order to bid Stephen Colbert farewell. It had been replaced by something else that didn’t appear to be nostalgia.
The so-called Strike Force Five from the pandemic-era writers’ strike, Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers, got back together last week for what was billed as a benefit, with the money raised going to The Late Show’s unemployed employees. That particular detail is important. Citing yearly losses of about $40 million, CBS announced the cancellation back in July with a financial justification. However, no one in the room seemed to take the timing at face value—just days after Colbert made fun of a $16 million settlement involving Paramount.
There was an odd tension beneath the jokes as I watched the panel play out. Five men who have been undercutting each other’s monologues, trading guests, and vying for the same attention for decades suddenly appear to be coworkers at a wake. Oliver was more perceptive than normal. Meyers, who typically lets his “Closer Look” segments take center stage, was clearly involved in a way that seemed more like solidarity than performance. Fallon, who has always shied away from politics, didn’t steer clear of much.
It’s possible that the industry has advanced to the point where people no longer benefit from the traditional courteous distances. Since the middle of the 2010s, streaming, YouTube videos that receive more views than the broadcasts themselves, and a younger audience that just doesn’t watch linear television at 11:35 p.m. have all contributed to the collapse of late-night economics. These shows are extremely expensive to produce. It doesn’t sell advertisements against them. Therefore, it was difficult to determine whether CBS was sending a message or making a business decision when they pulled the trigger. Perhaps both.
Colbert has been remarkably open about the entire situation. During a recent appearance on Kimmel, he spoke about the moment he was informed that the show was coming to an end in a way that sounded more like a man still processing it than a celebrity reflecting. He has joked, with a hint of dark humor, that CBS made a mistake by keeping him alive for an additional ten months. People laughed at that line. It didn’t sound like a joke either.
Walking through the public response on the internet gives the impression that viewers have discovered something that the networks haven’t fully acknowledged. Social media posts from fans weren’t lamenting a show. They were lamenting a specific type of authorization: the authorization to ridicule influential individuals in front of a national audience without first consulting corporate. No one on the panel was able to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether that permission is truly revoked or simply put on hold.
The design of the set was straightforward. One stage, five chairs—not much of a spectacle. However, it felt greater than the sum of its parts, as some cultural moments do when you can tell the participants are aware of the importance of what they are doing. Stewart has been hammering at the same themes on The Daily Show—the ridiculousness of the political moment and the helplessness of witnessing it—even though he isn’t officially in late-night anymore.
May 21 is the last day of The Late Show. Nobody is entirely sure what will happen after that. Most likely, neither do the hosts on that stage. Perhaps the most sincere thing late-night has done in years is to simply show up.