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Seth Meyers Is THE Quarantine Late Night Host
Everything works, from the claustrophobic attic to getting rid of that pesky live audience.
I’m sure this goes against the majority, but Seth Meyers is a better late night host in lockdown than Stephen Colbert. Much better.
I always liked Seth best, but the pandemic has made his superiority even more obvious. Stephen seems to need interaction with others. Seth doesn’t. Stephen clearly misses his live audience and finds substitutes as he can. In his opening monologue, Stephen talks with his crew, his band leader, and occasionally his dog.
Seth, by contrast, has settled into his own rhythm and he solos so well. Sure, he’s wonkier, but he doesn’t mug for the camera or laugh at his own jokes (which Stephen does regularly). Seth’s humor requires us to use our brains a little, such as when he evokes historical events or sustains a joke through a monologue. He also uses one of my favorite kinds of humor: self-deprecating. Recently he compared (at minute:second 6:06) his Mother’s Day gift to that of his brother, showing that the brother made a more personal and original gesture. Including his family in his quarantine experience has made him seem more like an Every-American: he’s going through a life-shattering pandemic while his same-old family dynamics bafflingly don’t adjust.
I will not comment on their personal lives, which I know nothing about, but Stephen reminds me of the good-looking high school boy who made goofy jokes and had a great time laughing at his own humor. Seth reminds me of the not-as-good-looking (but still hella appealing) high school boy who was quietly hilarious with a thinking person’s humor. He never laughed at his own jokes because he wasn’t trying to be funny. He was just expressing how he saw the world and those views just happened to make others laugh.
As a monologuist, Seth leaves no gaps where audience laughter would go. He overlaps himself, switching from the tone of one joke to the seriousness of the next topic like a master editor. In a recent monologue, he knows exactly when to re-use a punchline. He has turned the word Obamagate into a Stargate reference (at 12:46). And broadcasting from his attic is the perfect way to convey that he feels our cabin fever…
