Goodbye to Colbert

I think it obvious that Stephen Colbert is a smart, empathetic, talented guy, and as far as I know has a reputation of being a very decent man off screen as well as on.   (On the latter point, he's rather like Steven Spielberg - happily, a guest on the last week of his chat show - and who also has had a long career with no virtually no one claiming he treated them poorly.)  

So, of course I am sad to see the demise of his Late Show, especially given the clear corporate greed and politics behind it.   (There really is a Nazi era, "what's good for the Fuehrer is good for the company", feel about so much of America at the moment, and as such I'm quietly amused that a bunch of tech billionaires accompanying Trump to China seems to have resulted in them walking away empty handed.)

That said, I do feel the last few Late Night shows felt a tad - off kilter? - in a way I find hard to pin down.  

I think he wanted to go out on a note of positivity rather than self-pity, emphasising how much pleasure the show has brought him and how lucky he has been to be able to host it.   This is admirable in a way, but I think in trying to do so, he came across a bit flat, or defeated, or something?   

The comedy writing for the last show similarly fell a bit flat, if you ask me.  And while I think it was a great idea for Paul McCartney to sing "Hello Goodbye" as the final song, there's no doubt the preceding interview felt lifeless.   I think Paul at the stage of having already said everything that could possibly be said about what it was like to be a Beatle in America in the 1960's, and to be honest, no one cares about his new music.  

Similarly, the episode which featured Stephen taking the lightweight questionnaire he has delivered to many guests felt a bit self indulgent.   It certainly proved he has a hell of a lot of media friends, though!

Maybe I am being too hard on him given he had a thankless task in deciding the right tone to hit.   I mean if he had done what I think the situation really deserved, which was something akin to the "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" speech from Network, that would self indulgent in its own worse way. 

The whole thing (particularly as a reflection on corporate America and the way money runs to reward the most corrupt American administration in history) has left me feeling more deflated that I expected. 

PS:  I just checked what I wrote when David Letterman ended his run, and in line with my memory of being impressed with his last show in a bittersweet way, I said it was "perfect".  The huge difference, of course, is that he was leaving on his own terms.