Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9403080016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Tom Shales
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Nevertheless, let it be duly recorded and herewith witnesseth that ``Later with Greg Kinnear'' debuted on NBC last Monday, though actually it was last Tuesday, since the show is seen at 1:35 a.m. Kinnear, the super-smirky host of the E! cable channel's ``Talk Soup,'' picked up where the esteemed Bob Costas left off.
``Later'' has been moved to Los Angeles and become much, much noisier in the process. It has also lost some of the civility and substance that Costas brought to it. But many in the TV industry think Kinnear should be thought of not as a successor to Costas so much as a potential replacement for Conan O'Brien.
O'Brien is the untried talent who took over the ``Late Night'' show when David Letterman went to CBS (``Late Night'' airs at 12:35 a.m., following ``The Tonight Show''). Although he did get a fan letter recently from Bill Clinton (go figure), neither O'Brien's ratings nor his finesse have improved much over the months he's been on. Rumors are that Kinnear's being prepped to move in and take over.
Who, then, would take over ``Later''? Let's not think about it.
On ``Talk Soup,'' which continues on the E! channel, all Kinnear has to do is play embarrassing clips from talk shows like Donahue's and Geraldo's and make sarcastic cracks. Even though that wouldn't seem to be good training for anything, in his first couple of ``Later'' shows Kinnear appeared to be fairly adept, and extremely self-assured, about facing an audience and making what could pass for witty repartee.
Each half-hour show opens with ``media bites,'' a kind of illustrated monologue obviously patterned on ``Talk Soup.'' Kinnear shows a clip of some oddity or absurdity in the news and then makes yet more sarcastic comments. After shots of a tobacco auction, for instance: ``You see - white people can rap.''
The essence of the new ``Later,'' as with the old, is the one-on-one interview, with Kinnear's first guest being Julia Louis-Dreyfus, delightful actress from ``Seinfeld.'' She had no anecdotes or funny stories, however - only snide rejoinders to Kinnear's snide remarks. Gimmicks dreamed up by Kinnear and his producers to liven up the interview fell flat, especially a mock-tabloid segment that purported to reveal the facetious ``secret'' that Louis-Dreyfus is bald under all that Nice 'N Easy hair.
On the next night, Martin Short was the guest and proved to be his usual sure-fire self. This time the producers had dreamed up two gimmicks: one, a facetious, filmed biography of Short, was stupid and flopped. The other worked better. Near the end of the interview, Kinnear proposed that he and Short read from the script of ``The Bodyguard,'' with Short taking the Kevin Costner lines and Kinnear playing Whitney Houston's role.
Thanks to Short, it was a scream.
The biggest complaint one might make about ``Later'' is the presence of the studio audience. Thankfully there's no house band, but at such a delicate hour of the night, a studio audience seems a needlessly intrusive prop. Kinnear always seemed funniest when looking off to the wings and playing to his own staff, anyway, the way Tom Snyder does.
Of course, the studio audience may only be there because the show is essentially an on-air rehearsal for a Conan O'Brien replacement show. That may come sooner rather than ``Later'' if O'Brien's ratings don't perk up. Kinnear certainly has the confidence that O'Brien lacks, and he has almost, almost mastered the art of saying smug and smirky things without coming across as a self-adoring jerk.
And compared to such klutzy late-night debuts as those of O'Brien and Chevy Chase, the new ``Later'' arrived with very few kinks left to be worked out. Give it a couple weeks and it may be virtually kink-free - and ready to rumble.
\ Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB