All Eyes on Late Night as Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon, and Meyers Return From Summer Break

In the past six months, there have been enough watershed moments in late-night television for the genre to drown in—and some aspects of that tortured wet metaphor seem to be seriously happening.

The deluge will only continue Tuesday night, when the Great Return unfolds across three networks:

Jimmy Kimmel will reappear on ABC after his summerlong R&R from his increasingly fractious War of Words with the White House; Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers also come back from a two-week break, both taking recent incoming from Trump; and perhaps most arrestingly, Stephen Colbert will return after his own three-week hiatus, still grappling with the abrupt, surprising, discomforting, dissonant closing notice delivered by CBS to him and the network’s long-standing Late Show franchise.

Tonight’s episode will kick off the long goodbye: a nine-month final season for Colbert as the signature late-night star of CBS.

All of that ought to make for especially intriguing viewing.

One of the best things about late night, at least since the Carson era, has been tuning in to hear what a host has to say about some significant event in American politics or culture. Tonight we’ll have a group of talented, witty guys who’ve been on radio silence during a torrent of news developments—many of which would have been fodder for jokes by the pound had they been on the air.

And not just jokes. The state of play in late night now includes high percentages of personal outrage and umbrage about the state of the nation.

Kimmel, perhaps most saliently, has not had the chance to comment on his show about the treatment of his friend Colbert, and what it may portend for the rest of late night. He did issue an initial reaction on social media, has encouraged Emmy voters to back Colbert, and—in a recent print interview—questioned CBS’s premise of sizeable money losses justifying the cancellation. Look for some point-underscoring in those areas Tuesday night.

But Kimmel can also be counted on for next-level haymakers directed at his prime target, Donald Trump.

Seth Meyers had a little personal Trump interaction these past few weeks that might demand some special attention. While Seth was away, Trump—for reasons known only to himself—decided to go off on what he called the “sick rumor” that NBC had extended Meyers’s contract despite his lack of “ratings, talent and intelligence.”

That’s mostly par for the course (your par perhaps depending on whether your caddie can drop a ball for you after you’ve lost yours in the weeds) of presidential assaults on late-night stars, whose comments about him seem permanently under his skin like a shot of bleach. Except Trump had previously been far less focused on Meyers, so much so that he seemed unaware the extension happened 14 months ago.

Still, the “rumor” apparently having finally reached him, Trump announced/threatened that he would “definitely be finding out” how “fake news NBC” (how did news get involved in this?) could have been so foolish as to keep Meyers on the air until 2028. Maybe he’ll decide to sue? Or take it to the Supreme Court?

Trump may be additionally aroused if he hears a similar sick rumor about NBC extending its deal with Jimmy Fallon (Trump has said Jimmy also has “no talent” and will be “going soon”). Fallon’s renewal is of more recent vintage—having happened only 13 months ago.

Clearly, the belligerents are ramping up their offensives across the late-night trenches. The President will undoubtedly continue his bombardments from behind his phone.

For the returning hosts, the stage will be their redoubt of choice. And their list of ammunition is long: armed troops in American cities; deportations of everyone from courageous firefighters to Guatemalan six-year-olds; endless diversions from anything associated with the name Epstein; fired statisticians, scientific experts, and other critics; crackpot campaigns against public health; and continuing “sick rumors” about Trump’s own health.

To name a few.

Writers on the returning shows could be sorting through stacks of potential material for weeks—except new material will almost certainly arise daily.

For many television productions, the first show post–Labor Day is often the semi-official start of a new television “season.” But like most other things related to linear television, that concept has eroded to the edge of meaninglessness in the streaming era.

Still, both Kimmel and Colbert are, for the record, starting their new “seasons” Tuesday night (Fallon and Meyers have a season-kickoff date in three weeks).

Will it be the last time three broadcast networks launch a season that includes a late-night show?

That’s already in the cards if CBS’s plans come to fruition. The network has a deal in place to bring in a new format—a round table of comics doing specifically untopical, and hence apolitical, material—called Comics Unleashed.

But that won’t be a network product. It’s a long-running syndicated program owned and operated by entrepreneur (and comic) Byron Allen. For all those reasons, it seems unlikely to ever appear on the Trump radar.

What will be worth watching in the coming fighting season is how much more attrition accrues. Unlike the other Jimmy and his NBC partner Seth, there’s no current sick rumor about a renewal of Jimmy Kimmel’s contract. And he himself has often alluded to leaning toward closing the show down.

But for the moment, he remains in action—as do the other three late-night combatants—with one, Colonel Colbert, surely primed to go out swinging.

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