Tonight, NBC makes good on its promise to give Jimmy Fallon an online tryout before he takes over next year as host of Late Night from Conan O’Brien. His five-minute webcast will go live at 12:30 E.T. The plan seems to have changed, from a sort of mini-late-show monologue to a “video blog” offering “behind-the-scenes access to Fallon’s preparation to take over Late Night.” Worth it? I’ll quote my original reaction to the idea:
[I]t does seem prudent to give Fallon a chance to work out the kinks before he goes live, although that argument makes more sense if you’re coming at it from the I-can’t-believe-Jimmy-Fallon-is-actually-going-to-host-Late-Night standpoint. More bizarre is one of [Lorne] Michaels’ stated reasons for doing the webcasts, which he says he plans to post at 12:30 E.T. every night: to accustom the audience to seeing Fallon perform on-screen at that time. This seems to misunderstand the nature of web video, which is all about time-shifting and downloading. I mean, if you’re actually sitting down with your laptop at half past midnight waiting for a Jimmy Fallon video to post, and you are not yourself Jimmy Fallon, is this not good evidence that there is a hole in your life?
So is there? Find out tonight! Personally, I’ll watch it sometime in the morning.