Stephen Colbert

Who had the best week ever this week? Well, a candidate is surely Stephen Colbert, who was named the replacement for host of the CBS Late Show, only a week after David Letterman announced his retirement. For the last two days Colbert's face has been everywhere, as everyone, from TV critics to Rush Limbaugh, has an opinion on the subject. Why not me?

I do think Letterman was the greatest late-night host in the history of TV, and will post on him when his retirement is nigh. But the alacrity of Colbert's hiring seems to indicate that he was the only choice. How he will fare and what it will mean for the "late night landscape" is fun to speculate about.

To start, unlike The Tonight Show, which has an almost sixty-year history, The Late Show was created for Letterman, so the only legacy is his. It's hard to remember, but before Letterman took the gig, CBS was running reruns of cop shows at 11:30. ABC didn't have a late-night host, either. NBC, with Johnny Carson, had owned late night, and when Letterman started his show on NBC (after a creative but ill-timed morning show) he broke new ground there, as well.

Now the channels are littered with hosts, with two networks having two shows, and basic cable in the game, too. Jon Stewart, who was not the first host of The Daily Show (that honor goes to the now-forgotten Craig Kilborn) established a beachhead, and Colbert spun off at 11:30, using his buffoonish right-wing character to satirize conservative hosts like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly.

New York magazine posted some of the reviews of his show's debut, most predicting it was a one-trick pony and wouldn't last. But Colbert, never breaking character, created a classic. I remember the first time I remember thinking, "I've got to watch this show." He took down a particularly loony Glenn Beck segment, and as he does with these things, his character agreed with it while also making it look completely stupid. Since then he's done a kind of performance art, with his exposure of the inane loopholes in PAC laws, or his run for "the president of South Carolina."

When the rumors started about Colbert as new Late Show host began, I and many others wondered if he would continue the character of "Stephen Colbert." He is an actor, not a stand-up comedian, as almost every late-night host has been. Can he succeed being himself? Know one knows for sure, but I have every confidence, as the man has probably only shown us one side of himself. Jon Stewart mentioned that he "gears he hasn't used yet." Colbert is an accomplished musical theater performer, so we can expect to hear him singing a lot more.

But what about his politics? Most late-night hosts criticize both parties, and to be fair, Colbert didn't hesitate to make some Democrats look foolish. But it's hard not to see that Colbert leans left (Letterman, later in his career, showed his lefty stripes as well, with his feud with Sarah Palin and going much further with mocking George W. Bush than Obama). This has what has ignited the firestorm on the right fringes, with Rush Limbaugh claiming that CBS has stuck to it America's heartland, where ever that is. Colbert will now be interviewing starlets and and sit-com actors, while the authors and intellectuals that graced his stage at Comedy Central likely will not be asked on. It's hard to be political while chatting with Selena Gomez.

But who knows? I'm excited to see what he and his writers come up with. I will miss "Stephen Colbert," though, the way he adjust his eyeglasses and addresses his audience as "nation." It was one of the greatest characters in the history of television, right up there with Archie Bunker, Lou Grant, and Fraser Crane.