On Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 4:08 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: > > Having Lindsay on the show and not talking about her sex life is like > > having Bill O'Reilly on the show and not talking about being an asshole. > > For better or worse, he doesn't do that with O'Reilly any more, either. > > As far as Lohan goes: > > 1. We have no idea what agreements there might have been about what was > out of bounds. It may be that while Lindsay was willing to talk about > herself, she wasn't willing to talk about the people on the list. Hell, > that may be why she was so anxious to talk to Oprah. > > 2. There was a time, decades ago, when Dave would have been happy to ask > about the list and take whatever reaction he got. Those were also the days > when the staff would put together weeks of themed reruns like "Dave makes > guests cry". As Letterman has gotten older, he's been less interested in > doing that kind of thing. Some of it is probably just empathy; some is > probably the recognition that it's easier to book guests if they're not > terrified of what the host might do. > > I expect the next year of the Late Show to be like Carson's last year, > where most of the big names in show biz want to come on one last time. If > there are things that Dave's always wanted to do but hasn't felt able to, > he may or may not take the chance. His relationship with CBS seems to > remain good, though, so there's no reason to burn bridges. >
Obviously I have a pro-Dave bias, but I am also able to recognize weaknesses and failure. I think one of these is illustrated by Lohan, but not in the way Kevin and JW suggest above. First, no late night host in living memory has consistently demonstrated both the skill and willingness to violate standard celebrity and talk show expectations during interviews than Dave, including the ones Kevin mentions functioning during their best weeks. One good example of the specific think Kevin seems to have in mind is his interview of Paris Hilton just after she got out of jail. She kept saying she didn't want to talk about that, and he made it clear that there was no earthly reason she would ever be on his show if it were not for that. I don't think the Lohan situation is in the same ballpark. First of all, speaking for myself, I am uninterested in her sex life. Assuming (and I did not see what must have been a hard hitting expose into her sexual partners Kevin refers to) that she did not have sex with minors, or coerce anyone into having sex with her, or have sex with a judge or mental health professional in order to get out of prison or rehab early, how is her sex life relevant to anything? He did bring up her sobriety (and his own) several times, and (gently, for him) made fun of what apparently is some kind of reality show she is doing with Oprah (when he asked her if the show begins every day with breakfast, and then stuck on that theme and would not let go, for my money that was vintage Dave, and while not really material for his Hall of Fame reel, for me was just about as entertaining as anyone could make an interview with Lindsey Lohan). Another way in which the Lohan interview was different than the Hilton interview is that there obviously was a reason for her to be on his show other than talking about something she did not want to talk about - she has some kind of show with Oprah, and, most relevant, she is appearing on a CBS sitcom this week. The real weakness of and disappointment with Dave the Lohan segment illustrates is his continued willingness to collaborate with the networks and move studios in the celebrity hype machine. I never minded that Dave first got out of the active absurdity of his NBC show when he came over to the Ed, or that he eventually got out of the remote comedy segment business (which took a lot of his time to plan and execute). People get older and have shifting priorities and that is the way of the world. But I did have hopes that when Dave came to 11:35 he was going to keep holding up a mirror to the celebrity pimping and fuc&ing that constitutes so much of late night television. While he has done some of that - more than most, he has not done as much as I had hoped. As Hilton herself (and a long line of others) have shown, if you show Dave that you can take a few punches from him and come back like a pro, he will eventually embrace you and go easy on you. I don't want to see him grilling moronic celebrities on their inane lives, I would like to see in his victory lap that he only has on guests that he actually likes and is interested in, and refuses to book the rest. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
