Is Seth Meyers a good pick to replace Jimmy Fallon?

NBC tapped the Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update anchor to take over Late Night, replacing... another SNL Weekend Update alum

Seth Meyers
(Image credit: Dana Edelson/NBC)

NBC is again poaching from Saturday Night Live to fill its Late Night slot. On Sunday, the network confirmed that SNL head writer and Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers will replace Late Night's Jimmy Fallon when Fallon, also an SNL alumnus, moves up to replace Jay Leno as Tonight Show host.

Meyers' selection isn't a total surprise — he was the frontrunner in the rumor mill — but "it's a great choice," says David Zurawik at The Baltimore Sun. "Meyers is a huge talent. NBC is going to be much better off once Jay Leno is gone."

Actually, picking Meyers for the chair once filled by the caustic David Letterman and zany Conan O'Brien feels a little too safe, says James Poniewozik at TIME. "My sentiments are, like NBC's 12:35 programming choices, essentially unchanged" from when I wrote about the expected succession a month ago: "Really? Really?"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Nothing against Meyers, who very likely could be excellent in the job. I like him on SNL. He's funny, smart, good with topical comedy. He's as well qualified to host Late Night as Fallon was when he took over. But there's the thing: he's practically exactly where and what Fallon was when he took over. Leaving aside the whole dominance of late night by white men, it's unfortunate that NBC is taking a format already saturated with guys behind desks and making as little change to it as possible.... The time after midnight used to be an anarchic spot within network TV for experimentation. Now, after midnight, it's just another day. [TIME]

Man, give Meyers a chance, says Ben Yakas at Gothamist. True, his "solid and genial presence" behind the storied Weekend Update desk hasn't shown him to be "the strong personality of a Norm McDonald or Tina Fey." But this is a new gig, and "it will be interesting to see what kind of show he'll have once he has the freedom to shape Late Night as he wants," says Yakas.

What can we expect from Late Night with Seth Meyers? "No decisions have been made yet about whether the format of the show will change in any substantial way," says Bill Carter in The New York Times. Meyers isn't even sure whether he will have a house band — The Roots, Fallon's musical sidekicks, are a hard act to follow.

"I don't want to make any broad pronouncements about how the show is going to be, whether it's going to be the same or different," Meyers tells the Times. "But I have to draw on my background in improvisational comedy and sketch comedy and stand-up comedy and try to find some mix of that." He also hopes to bring to Late Night what he calls "a two-shot with talented, funny people" — interviews with comedian-performers who stop by his desk, probably in character. If you're a fan of Bobby Moynihan's "Drunk Uncle" or Bill Hader's Stefon, for example, that kind of continuity is something to look forward to.

Now we can all speculate about who will replace Meyers at Weekend Update, says Gothamist's Yakas. "Assuming that Jay Leno doesn't change his mind yet again."

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Peter Weber

Peter Weber is a senior editor at TheWeek.com, and has handled the editorial night shift since the website launched in 2008. A graduate of Northwestern University, Peter has worked at Facts on File and The New York Times Magazine. He speaks Spanish and Italian and plays bass and rhythm cello in an Austin rock band. Follow him on Twitter.