{"id":686277,"date":"2026-05-22T11:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T11:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/686277\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T11:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T11:53:09","slug":"in-the-late-shows-melancholy-sci-fi-finale-stephen-colbert-broke-the-comedy-variety-talk-continuum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/686277\/","title":{"rendered":"In The Late Show\u2019s melancholy, sci-fi finale, Stephen Colbert broke the comedy-variety-talk continuum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephen Colbert, seen on his set in New York on May 6, hosted his final episode Thursday night.Scott Kowalchyk\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Ed Sullivan. Samantha Bee. Arsenio Hall. Johnny Carson. Chelsea Handler. Trevor Noah. Jay Leno. Joan Rivers. Robin Thede. Dick Cavett. Jack Paar. Steve Allen. <\/p>\n

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert\u2019s final episode opened with an introduction cobbled together from clips of these and other past and present American television late-night and variety show hosts dating back three quarters of a century.<\/p>\n

In what was also the series finale for CBS\u2019s The Late Show franchise altogether (RIP: 1993-2026), Stephen Colbert humbly positioned himself as just another host in what was dubbed \u201cthe comedy-variety-talk continuum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colbert fallout: When American TV is censored, Canadian networks are, too, by proxy<\/a><\/p>\n

Though Colbert promised his audience a regular Thursday episode full of joy to end things off, the dominant emotion of his departing show was melancholy \u2013 and the style slowly drifted into sci-fi.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump was not mentioned by name, but the authoritarian-style pressure he had put on CBS to cancel Colbert hung over the proceedings. (The network has insisted The Late Show\u2019s death was purely a financial decision.)<\/p>\n

Fans lined up in the rain outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York on Thursday ahead of the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Colbert, 62, whose previous hosting gig was on Comedy Central\u2019s The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014, recalled how in the first episode of that show, his arch-conservative alter-ego had said: \u201cAnyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.\u201d<\/p>\n

His job at The Late Show was different, Colbert said he had quickly discovered: \u201cWe were here to feel the news with you. And I don\u2019t know about you, but I sure have felt it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first half of the show, Colbert followed the familiar structure \u2013 a topical monologue, a desk bit, then a multi-part interview with his surprise final guest, Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n

Colbert is going out head held high, but more Canadians are turning to a gloves-off Kimmel<\/a><\/p>\n

The 83-year-old singer-songwriter\u2019s first band, The Beatles, had made its American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 in the very studio that has been home to The Late Show since 1993.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s where all the music we loved came from,\u201d McCartney recalled of his first visit to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe land of the free, the greatest democracy: That is what it was. Still is, hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul McCartney was a surprise guest on Thursday’s finale.John Lamparski\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

This is where the pretense that The Late Show was just a standard episode ended. Feigning technical difficulties, Colbert wandered backstage and (in a pre-recorded segment) discovered a glowing green wormhole.<\/p>\n

Popular scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared to explain it had opened up due to a rift \u201cin the comedy-variety talk continuum\u201d caused by CBS cancelling The Late Show despite it being No. 1 in the ratings.<\/p>\n

The Daily Show\u2019s Jon Stewart, Colbert\u2019s mentor, then appeared to dig deeper into the hole as a metaphor \u2013 the latest dark matter that Colbert would have to choose to face with laughter.<\/p>\n

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Next, Colbert\u2019s fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, plus HBO satirist Jon Oliver, showed up to look into the hole. \u201cAt some point this may come for all of our shows,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n

Soon after, Colbert was sucked into the wormhole and found himself in a void-like theatre with a ghost light singing an Elvis Costello song called Jump Up; Costello was there too, as were Jon Batiste and Louis Cato, Colbert\u2019s band leaders past and present.<\/p>\n

Jump up, hold on tight <\/p>\n

Can\u2019t trust a promise or a guarantee <\/p>\n

\u2018Cause the man \u2018round the curve says that he\u2019s never heard of you or me.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A television monitor inside the Ed Sullivan Theater shows the last episode of Stephen Colbert\u2019s Late Show.Adam Gray\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Back in the Ed Sullivan Theater, McCartney and Colbert sang Hello, Goodbye with The Late Show\u2019s staff and crew in what become a joyful flash mob.<\/p>\n

But then there was more pre-recorded business: McCartney flipped a giant off switch; the Ed Sullivan Theater was sucked into the sky; it fell back down to Earth, enclosed in a snow globe; Colbert\u2019s dog Benny sniffed it.<\/p>\n

This was a lot of endings. But, to be fair, it\u2019s hard to say goodbye \u2013 and Colbert has had to do so for eight months now.<\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s war on late night is disturbingly anti-democratic, he has also given an extra wind of relevance to the aging format.<\/p>\n

Last May, streaming television viewing in the United States surpassed what we now call linear television \u2013 broadcast and cable, combined \u2013 for the first time, according to the ratings tracker Nielsen. <\/p>\n

The concept of a \u201clate-night show\u201d is increasingly an anachronism in this on-demand environment.<\/p>\n

If daily programs like The Late Show are still on the other American networks in another decade, it will be a surprise.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t always there. Immediately before The Late Show with David Letterman was launched in 1993, CBS\u2019s 11:35 p.m. ET slot was filled with by Crimetime After Primetime \u2013 where low-cost imported Canadian dramas like Forever Knight and Fly by Night aired.<\/p>\n

Now, CBS affiliates in the United States will fill that space with a non-topical comedy panel show called Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen.<\/p>\n

Global TV, which has carried Colbert in Canada for its 11-year run, will air reruns of its original true-crime series Crime Beat Monday to Friday.<\/p>\n

The Ed Sullivan Theater, meanwhile, has not disappeared into a snow globe. <\/p>\n

The landmark 99-year-old building at 1697 Broadway in Manhattan was first built as a live theatre, then became a music hall and a CBS radio sound stage before being used for television, mostly, since 1948. <\/p>\n

Some wonder if it might become a Broadway theatre again.<\/p>\n

As Colbert seemed to want to convey in his broadcast, he was just a blip on a stage trod on not only by Letterman and The Beatles before him, but Cary Grant, Jackie Gleason, Nichols and May, Kate and Allie… <\/p>\n

The arc of the American entertainment universe is long; it\u2019s unclear where it is bending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Stephen Colbert, seen on his set in New York on May 6, hosted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,2922,348],"class_list":["post-686277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-noastack","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}