NBC premiered Late Night with Seth Meyers —Meyers took over hosting duties from Fallon, now host of The Tonight Show—on Monday, Feb. 24, 12:35 a.m. ET. The following are reviews from TV critics around the web, compiled by B&C.
“Meyers’ show also comes across as something of an afterthought, offering the former ‘Weekend Update’ host in an expanded but highly familiar package. ‘I’m gonna shake stuff up and open this thing with a monologue,’ Meyers quipped at the outset, and the line was telling, since virtually nothing about this latest Late Night exhibited a whiff of freshness or originality.”
—Brian Lowry, Variety
“Anyone searching for signs of nerves, or perhaps of excess adrenaline, could probably find it in the wide grin that seldom seemed to leave Meyers' face. But the expression will settle, as will the host. Time of course will tell, but Late Night once again seems to be in good hands.”
—Robert Bianco, USA Today
“In late-night TV terms, that story had nothing in common with Fallon, who quite savvily seems to view his show as a viral-baiting content farm. It felt more like the conversational chatter of the Letterman/Ferguson school. And although it’s wrong to judge a host’s interview skills from his BFF first guest, I loved how freewheeling Meyers’ conversation with Poehler got, hopscotching between improvy humor and career talk and Clooney jokes.”
—Darren Franich, Entertainment Weekly
“If you liked Seth Meyers in Saturday Night Live, you probably liked his debut early Tuesday morning on NBC’s Late Night. In fact, if it weren’t for a couple of cool guests, you would hardly have been able to tell the difference. Meyers essentially transferred his persona and repertoire from SNL to a late-night talk format. It worked, too, by the way.”
—David Hinckley, New York Daily News
“The monologue was reminiscent in style and cadence to his ‘Weekend Update’ segments, full of rapid-fire one-liners about the day's headlines. In response to a proposed new law in Arizona that would make it legal for businesses to refuse service to gay people, Meyers quipped, ‘Some businesses have already put up signs that read Nice shirt, nice shoes, no service.'”
—Meredith Blake, Los Angeles Times
