Welcome back, late night television! The writers strike is officially over, and the networks wasted no time getting Stephen and the Jimmys back on screen. As the work stoppage stretched past the hundred-day mark, the comedians banded together for the ignominious task of hosting a podcast (Strike Force Five) to help support the salaries of their staffs. Happily, on Monday they were able to return to television on separate shows.
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Of course, each had to acknowledge their prolonged absence in his own unique way. Stephen Colbert returned to The Late Show with a skit in which he played a grizzled fisherman called back to land with news of the strike, featuring a bonus explanation of some of the WGA deal (“Oh, I see, artificial intelligence can be used, but it can’t be credited as a writer or be a source of literary material? That makes sense, why did that take five months?”).
Jimmy Kimmel opened his show in faux-therapy. “I don’t know if I’ll be back,” he said to his shrink. “You’ll be back,” replied Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Jimmy Fallon, whose reputation took a bit of a hit while The Tonight Show was off the air, provided both a musical and non-musical recap of five months’ worth of news. “You’ve got to hand it to them. Only writers would spend all summer fighting to go back to the office,” he joked.
Seth Meyers was also back on Monday with an hour-long “Closer Look” segment to cover some of the politics that was missed during the strike. He also gave a shout-out to the WGA negotiating committee and guild leadership “for all the work they put in, all the personal time they sacrificed to be in the room negotiating for the very fair deal that all the writers deserved.”
The final member of Strike Force Five, John Oliver, brought his show back on Sunday, and also acknowledged the hard work of writers during the strike—though he took a more fiery tone than his broadcast brethren: “[While] I’m happy that they eventually got a fair deal and immensely proud of what our union accomplished, I’m also furious that it took the studios 148 days to achieve a deal that they could have offered on day fucking one,” he said.
While late night looked a lot like it usually does upon its return, the actors strike prevented television and film stars from coming on to promote their work. Meyers circumvented the interview portion altogether with “A Closer Look,” while the other hosts had non-actor guests like Neil de Grasse Tyson and John Mayer (or actors not talking about acting, in the case of Schwarzenegger). With SAG-AFTRA returning to the bargaining table with the AMPTP, hopefully late night will be back to business as usual soon enough.