“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” is celebrating one year of being on air on Sept. 8.

After a brief warming period to kick off the new version of the classic David Letterman show, the ratings quickly dropped and critics’ opinions followed. Something about Colbert’s interview style was off, his in-show relationship with band leader Jon Batiste seemed forced and the transitions between segments and guest appearances were not working smoothly.

The lukewarm reception to the show gave a lot of people the impression that the Colbert we loved was never to return. People adore Colbert, so why was he not a hit right away?

Jimmy Fallon took over The Tonight Show early in 2014 to a huge cultural welcoming. He reinvented the late-night show with a YouTube re-watch the next morning, each of his segments gathering multiple millions of views. His show seemed perfect for the new generation of late-night talk shows.

Jimmy Fallon pre-2014 was not any more lovable than Stephen Colbert pre-2016, but Fallon had a few major advantages over Colbert that gave him the explosive start that Colbert could not match.

Fallon hosted Late Night, NBC’s other nightly talk show which comes after The Tonight Show at 12:30 in the morning. There, Fallon had his same team of writers, producers and his band, The Roots, alongside him for five years. But in 2009, when Fallon took over the show after the great Conan/Leno fight, the show sucked. Fallon looked unprepared for every interview and seemed unable to shake the idea that they were actually making a television show.

They were given the benefit of the doubt from the network and viewers, because Fallon had never done anything like this before and seemed like a fun dude. Plus, as the second talk show of the night, there was a much smaller audience and a smaller risk. Fallon was allowed time to find himself and the show and developed it into something big and cool, enough to force Leno out. Fallon’s show changed from a post-primetime, hour-long talk show with a band in a television studio to a primetime, hour-long talk show with a band in a television studio.

Obviously, Stephen Colbert also hosted his own show prior to displacing a network legend. The Colbert Report produced 1,447 episodes between 2005 and 2014. That show is why CBS and America fell in love with the man. Colbert’s trouble switching from the character Stephen Colbert to himself for The Late Show is overstated. He knew how to perform, and man, did he know how to interview. The difference in his persona was never the problem. It was the show’s.

Stephen Colbert had no band to interact with, no huge theater and a simple three segments to get through for a half hour, four times a week in a small studio. He now hosts an hour-long network talk show five times a week in the same theatre where The Beatles were introduced to America.

Late night talk shows take a while to find themselves, but nobody ever cares to remember that. Colbert is the biggest example, but it was true for Seth Meyers, who could not shake the Weekend Update feel of his show at first. He was unfairly compared to Fallon, his predecessor, at Fallon’s height of popularity. After two years, Meyers is now the best interviewer after 11 p.m.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, like all talk shows, changed rapidly as the team behind the show found out what worked and what did not. They brought back Stephen’s character, went live for the Republican and Democratic conventions, and ditched a few boring sketches. His relationship with the band now feels playful. He looks like he is having fun again.

Forgive him if his show took a year to get comfortable.

Kyle Stevens is a sophomore advertising major. You can email him at ksteve03@syr.edu or reach him on Twitter at @kstevs_.

Published on September 6, 2016 at 10:04 pm