The Story of Late Night

As a fan of the Late Night Wars, and read both of Bill Carter's book's, I just finished this mini series and am somewhat torn. I didn't hate it, but, it felt biased and un even maybe even uncomplete? We get a lot of Fallon ( maybe too much, he pops up too soon and too early on) and Amber Ruffin is on too much .

Another review said how there was no Craig Ferguson. They mention him, but, for someone who was on the air for a decade, on a major network, all you get is a quick 30 seconds?? Even Wanda Sykes, who's show lasted a season got more air time.

Another thing I found odd, Colbert is featured in archive only. I can't imagine he turned the opportunity down to speak. It was fairly good mini series though until the last 30 minutes, it becomes to political and woke.

I would have given 'The Story of Late Night' 10 stars because it's really good but I can't because they only mention Craig Ferguson very briefly to introduce James Corden... Ferguson killed after Letterman for 10 years, his show was amazing and even though the format wasn't very different than other shows, he really changed the way of talking to the audience.

It's a fun little walk down the decades of late night TV shows. Most of it is non-controversial. There is a bit of lesser known side shows from the earlier years but it's mostly about the main stream. It's a CNN doc. The main spin happens in episode 4 & 5 where they take down Jay Leno. Obviously, Conan from sister company TBS is their man. This is a solid six hour long episodes. It's informative and a bit entertaining. There's also a healthy dose of nostalgia which leaves the last episode a bit less compelling.

I love late night TV. I watch more of late night shows than films or TV series, so this was something I knew I would love. It is very informantive, has many brilliant clips and good interviews but I was so disapointed by the fact that thy had nothing about Craig Ferguson, other than two 1 sec moments where they say that he was on air and that his show ended. If anyone deconstructed late night it was Craig Ferguson. And no one has been better at interviews than he was.

Also if you're going to talk about social conciousness how can you ignore Last Week Tonight with John Oliver? Or Real Time with Bill Maher?

Terrific interviews, clips, and insights into how and why late night has evolved. Unfortunately CNN in this, and in all its most recent documentaries that I've seen, thinks it's an asset to have nonstop loud, intrusive percussive music (if you can call it music) played on top of ANYONE who is being interviewed - and I mean everyone. The first time I heard it I thought I was watching an SNL parody of Investigative Reports. It is so predictable, so obnoxious, and such an assault on the ears that as soon as there was a scene that wasn't a historical clip, I turned off the sound and just read the subtitles. The music is actually ON TOP of the interviews, not under them. It is HUGELY distracting and unbalanced, with the effect of undermining the impact of the interviews rather than enhancing them - it's like a 5th grade kid's idea of how to make something dramatic that he got from playing video games.