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Review: The Jay Leno Show
Well that was … uneventful — safe, pleasant enough, not hilarious — yep, Jay is back.
Jay Leno’s new, nightly prime-time comedy show debuted Monday night and it was a lot like Jay Leno’s old, late-night comedy show. Oh, the desk and couch were gone (replaced with two easy chairs) and Leno did his popular “headlines” segment at the end of the show instead of the beginning, but otherwise, you’d hardly know the difference.
The show opened on a particularly low-key note that failed to live up to the hype. Jay was announced, walked out and slapped hands with a few audience members standing at the foot of the stage. They then awkwardly returned to their seats (weird) while the host delivered a standard-issue, topical monologue. A taped “Cheaters” segment with Leno confronting his band leader Kevin Eubanks (cavorting in the park with a Leno look-alike) was one of the funnier pieces of the night, although it had an odd, homophobic undercurrent.
The segment with musical comedians The Dan Band (“The Hangover”) was really long, as they serenaded a young woman while her car was washed. That bit was marginally funny, but it’s going to get old fast (and, frankly, it seemed more “Conan” than Jay, except Conan would have done it himself instead of sending out hired guns).
I like Jerry Seinfeld (he’s hilarious later this season on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) but I have to admit I agreed with his confession to Jay that, when he heard that Jay had chosen him as his first guest, he was a bit disappointed. As the tuxedo-clad Seinfeld put it, “I haven’t been on TV in 11 years.” Jerry had a few good lines: referring to Leno’s return, the comic said, “In the ’90s, when we quit a show, we actually left. But not in the Brett Favre, Lance Armstrong double o’s.” Jay asked Jerry leading questions that allowed the comic to launch into a few well-rehearsed bits, including parts of his stand up routine and a short segment with Oprah Winfrey that was more than a little too obvious.
A faux interview with President Barack Obama that spliced Jay’s questions with answers from an actual Obama appearance (pretty lame but technically well-done) was followed by Kanye West, who caused a stir Monday night by stealing the spotlight from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards. Leno practically made the contrite musical guest cry by asking him how his mother would have reacted to the VMA incident, then immediately and enthusiastically asked him if he was ready to sing. Nice, Jay. And by nice, I mean nice and awkward. This is the kind of situation that David Letterman deals with really well; Leno just wasn’t up to it.
The most interesting thing that happened all night was that KXAN cut smack into the middle of West’s performance (with Jay-Z and Rihanna) to promote its upcoming newscast’s top stories, then cut back to the end of the song. I’m assuming it was a timing glitch, but after watching the show I wouldn’t blame the station for wanting to grab any remaining viewers before they fell asleep (and besides, there’s something poetically just about West’s moment in the spotlight getting interrupted). NBC affiliates across the country are worried about Leno providing a weak lead-in to their local newscasts and I now think that fear is justified. “The Jay Leno Show” had little competition tonight, going up against reruns and movies. But the fall season is here and it’ll be up against real programming soon.
The show-closing “headlines” segment scared me for a minute: Jay used to do this piece at the top of the show and, for a second, I was afraid that I’d have to sit through another 40 minutes or so.
I’m not a big Leno fan and I’ll admit that I did not go into Monday’s debut with high hopes. That said, Jay didn’t even meet my low expectations. Twitter commentary was brutal: “You couldn’t pay me to watch Leno every night. He’s the least funny thing on TV,” one Austin Twitterer wrote during the show. “It’s just boring. Missed first part of monolog. So far haven’t seen anything funny. If Seinfeld isn’t on soon, it’s good bye Jay,” another local tweet read. But Jay’s not going anywhere. The show is cheap to produce and doesn’t need to win its time slot to be considered successful.
That’s the financial bottom line. The bottom line for viewers is this: if you liked “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (and a lot of people did) you’ll probably like “The Jay Leno Show.” If you weren’t a fan before, there’s nothing new here. Move along.
Did you watch the show? Will you tune in again? Sound off!
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