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David Letterman Retires

CBS should either be running repeats of Dave's best episodes, having guest hosts, or possibly even running Corden in the 11:30 time slot instead of Mentalist reruns until Colbert is ready to go.
 
I get that the guest host thing doesn't work for them if they're completely redoing the theater. But best-of shows seem like better summer filler.
 
Colbert isn't on until September, right?

I could see CBS doing a 'best of' Letterman series later in the summer.
 
Maybe the network's intention is to have Colbert start with as clean a slate as possible by making Letterman a non-person, neither showing nor mentioning Letterman from the end of his run through Colbert's debut.
 
It would be a futile exercise. Letterman's (figurative) ghost will loom over Colbert. It's inevitable. Granted, Letterman reruns for three months wouldn't exactly give the new later-night guy a better lead-in, buta carefully curated best-of might be better than nothing. Heck, another batch of "The Talk After Dark" might be better than a return to "Crimetime After Primetime."
 
anotherguy said:
CBS should either be running repeats of Dave's best episodes, having guest hosts, or possibly even running Corden in the 11:30 time slot instead of Mentalist reruns until Colbert is ready to go.
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Maybe Show the Best Of Craig Ferguson...lol [ half serious ].

I never heard of "theinterrobang". Is that site like The Onion? Seems like a trolling type story.
 
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Perhaps because if you're not going to go with the "best of Letterman" strategy, it would cause more confusion to air current Price is Right episodes there. No need to confuse anyone into thinking Price moved to late night.
 
I have to say that I watched the fill-in host approach they did when Craig Ferguson ended, and there were many very painful nights watching these folks try to host a talk show. That definitely didn't work. Even Regis interviewing Martin Short was painful. It was such a relief when it all ended.
 
TheBigA said:
I have to say that I watched the fill-in host approach they did when Craig Ferguson ended, and there were many very painful nights watching these folks try to host a talk show. That definitely didn't work. Even Regis interviewing Martin Short was painful. It was such a relief when it all ended.
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I enjoyed the edition of "The Late Late Show" with the interview you had referenced (the other edition of it that Regis Philbin hosted afterwards had him interviewing David Letterman; I enjoyed that one too).
 
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anotherguy said:
CBS should either be running repeats of Dave's best episodes, having guest hosts, or possibly even running Corden in the 11:30 time slot instead of Mentalist reruns until Colbert is ready to go.
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The guest host thing doesn't really work when you don't have a studio to use; the reason they're resorting to procedural reruns is because the Ed Sullivan Theater needs to be cleaned out, gutted and rebuilt to Colbert's specifications and if you remember the history, that they got it back to habitable standards before Letterman started in '93 was a miracle in real estate and remodeling, so they might be cleaning some other things up they couldn't back then. The only other option for a guest host run would be like they did in February with the LLS where they had a week of New York shows from CBS This Morning's Studio 57. Practical for a week, but not much longer than that, and there's really no option to bump out their syndicated shows at the CBS Broadcast Center for three months on a short-run series. (41 where 106 & Park taped is available but probably has short-term filming going on there while they find something permanent).

Not running Letterman reruns also gives more of a clean break between Letterman and Colbert. And you don't want to confuse the affiliates every so often by throwing Corden at 11:30pm; for the staff of that show that's also jarring because some 12:35-friendly content would have to be cut. It also gives CBS News a bit of breathing room if they need to devote an hour to some breaking story and don't want to mess around with primetime for the summer.
 
I had edited my previous message in this discussion after realizing I had made an error about the editions of "The Late Late Show" Regis Philbin had hosted recently.
 
mrschimpf said:
It also gives CBS News a bit of breathing room if they need to devote an hour to some breaking story and don't want to mess around with primetime for the summer.
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Which once again would be an awful lead-in for LLS. Unquestionably, Corden is the big loser here.
 
Perhaps they simply can't run a best-of show, if there's an issue with World Wide Pants. They're now out of the CBS late night biz, and maybe they had no interest in allowing repeats when they have nothing to gain from whatever happens to Colbert and Corden.
 
11:35 Mentalist reruns will get about 57 viewers. 11:35 Letterman reruns from the 1990s (and even from his NBC run from 1982-1993) would probably get 1 million or more viewers...for nostalgic purposes. Does CBS not believe in "throwback Dave"? Does CBS want us to search for old prerecorded VHS tapes to potentially find a 1997 Letterman on it? Still not extremely happy with CBS and WorldWide Pants.
Like everyone has said, Corden will lose a big chunk of audience with this Mentalist move.
 
Looks like they are rerunning episodes from the anticlimactic last two years - after the capture of "Red John" and after the show went down the tubes. Presumably this may have something to do with not conflicting with the episodes running in syndication. Still, it's a dumb move. CBS really would be better off with "best of" reruns but maybe there are now some contractual issues. Maybe Dave has made a deal to sell his reruns elsewhere. His hero, Johnny Carson, did alright selling his reruns to video.
 
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