Different network, still the same Kilborn

TV junkies wondering where their next fix of Smug Bastard was going to come from had few places to turn these past few months. Jon Stewart's too amiable, Conan's fueled by a lack of self-confidence, and Jay Leno's too satisfied with himself to be a huge enough jerk. By the end of March, those whose dependence on smugness and bastardry were left unsatiated when Craig Kilborn abandoned The Daily Show were probably in deep withdrawal, tossing and turning between sweaty bedsheets and suffering visions of highly immature college graduates in diapers crawling along the ceiling toward them, tossing off one-liners. Fortunately, Kilborn returned to the airwaves on Tues., Mar. 30, as host of The Late Late Show on CBS, and some of that old feelin' is available again, albeit in longer doses that lack their former potency. Addiction is a terrible thing.

Kilborn replaces Tom Snyder, whom CBS is probably stuffing into a trash compactor in Weehawken right now. Any evidence that The Late Late Show was once hosted by a man named Snyder has likewise been disposed of, except for a one-sentence name-check by Kilborn on Tuesday's premiere. The Late Late Show's opening no longer features the host's rambling monologues about dog training, and the live audience no longer consists of the one member of the technical crew who laughed at Snyder's jokes. Instead, there's a studio audience composed of demographically correct louts who laugh on cue at the same kinds of cheap-shot monologue jokes that are available on any other late-night talk show.

Kilborn wins no points for originality with either his opening or his inaugural comedy routine, the format of which is lifted almost directly from The Daily Show, right down to a videotaped clip featuring a surreally idiotic yokel.

In fact, a Daily residue seems to cling to the program in general, which shares the hyper-scripted feel and tightly packed formatting of Craig's old workplace. If Kilborn and crew don't waste a lot of energy on devising new rhythms for their first show, though, they make up for it with "edginess." Their news segment employs the word "semen," sends a big "screw you!" out to Slobodan Milosevic, and previews Watch Out For That Hammock, Charlie Brown, featuring a young boy who gets strangled by backyard recreational equipment. That ought to drag the kids away from the Masturbating Bear and his ilk.

An additional problem with the show is, inevitably, Kilborn's interviewing skills. Resembling a giant Mattel character with the power to hurt people's feelings, Kilborn fared well on the Daily Show because his newscasts worked well and his interviews only lasted long enough for him to extract the barest of facts from his guests before he launched into his "Five Questions" routine. With The Late Late Show, interviews are more prominent, and even with their length significantly cut from Snyderian proportions, Kilborn's lack of skill jams up the show like a rock in a lawnmower.

Tuesday's program featured Bill Murray, a man who is about as watchable as a late-night talk show guest can be, and Craig's interview with him still bombed. Their chatter was slowly paced and suffered from pauses between each exchange, as if the both of them were in a summer-stock company and still learning their lines. By the fifth minute, Kilborn had little to do but say something like "here's one of my favorite scenes of yours," and throw up a still frame from Ghostbusters. Fortunately, they had a pre-scripted bit to escape into at the end of "Five Questions," featuring Murray mixing a highly alcoholic Rob Roy.

Some of The Late Late Show is amusing: Kilborn's persona adds something to the news segments, where attitude helps push the ham-fisted jokes over the top. The moments where Kilborn explained how his show would work ("If I'm going to fall--and I will, because on Fridays I like to drink--it'll be in this area here.") were okay, as were the stills from a fictional premiere show the day before, ostensibly featuring Kenny Rogers and Coolio. However, many scripted segments of the show seem geared not to play to Kilborn's strengths but to protect him from his weaknesses. The Murray interview's prefabricated ending was an escape route, as were the sarcastic comments about Kilborn's interviewing abilities during a routine in which
he read fictitious reviews of his fictitious Monday
night premiere.

Another problem with packing an hour full of Daily Show-style scripted segments to the point of micromanaging the interviews is that it kills whatever spontaneity lives within the talk-show format. The Late Late Show isn't a news program and can't pretend to be. To confine hosts, guests, and routines to a hermetically-sealed environment of Kubrickian proportions will eventually lead to major problems. If something this mechanical isn't funny enough, it'll be as appealing as flavorless gelatin. Or, more specifically, gelatin where all you can taste is what's left of the horse's ass.

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