Colbert’s Late Show Should Use Friday Repeats to Revisit Its Greatest Hits

As The Late Show with Stephen Colbert enters its final months, the show is doing what it’s always done: producing episodes designed for the moment.

And when the show takes a break—as it does on Friday nights and during the occasional hiatus week—it fills the gap by re-airing a recent episode, usually one that first aired within the preceding week or two.

That’s how modern late night handles reruns.

But it hasn’t always been that way.

Going back to the 1980s, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman regularly reached back a year—or further—to replay standout episodes.

After moving to CBS in 1993, Late Show with David Letterman kept that tradition alive for years. Only gradually did reruns shrink into what they are today: recent and largely interchangeable.

That shift makes sense in the hyper-political modern late-night era, when comedy seems to age faster than ever and clips from all of the shows are readily available online.

But Colbert’s impending departure changes the equation. After The Late Show ends, full episodes of his run will be gone from broadcast television—presumably for good.

That makes the current rerun strategy feel like a missed opportunity to revisit some of Colbert’s most memorable episodes going back to the beginning of his run. The fact that the show is ending makes them timely.

Some are obvious: the show’s 2015 premiere and Colbert’s seminal first Late Show interview with then–Vice President Joe Biden just days later immediately come to mind.

Other episodes we’d love to see again include:

• The show’s “pope-isode,” a lovingly tongue-in-cheek celebration of Pope Francis’ 2015 visit to the United States
• Colbert’s star-studded live post–Super Bowl 50 episode, which featured appearances from Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Barack and Michelle Obama, astronaut Scott Kelly (live from the International Space Station), and a sketch from Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele
• The 2016 live election special, which captured—in real time, live on Showtime—Colbert’s stunned reaction to Donald Trump’s unexpected victory
• The Late Show’s May 2017 Daily Show reunion, which saw Colbert welcome Samantha Bee, Ed Helms, John Oliver, Rob Corddry, and their former boss Jon Stewart for an hourlong look back at their time on the Comedy Central series
• Other episodes with the casts of Veep, The Big Bang Theory, and The Brady Bunch.
• Colbert’s first homebound episode in March 2020, shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
• The show’s impromptu episodes following Donald Trump’s hospitalization with COVID and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol
• “The Late Show Presents: Red, White, & Greenland!,” the 2022 special documenting Colbert’s USO trip to Greenland
• Episodes featuring full hourlong interviews with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Bono, Paul McCartney, Christopher Nolan, and Gary Oldman

In most cases, these episodes haven’t been seen since shortly after they originally aired. Why not use the show’s last few months to give viewers—new and old—the chance to see them as they originally ran?

Nothing elaborate. Just a more intentional use of time that is already set aside for reruns.

For much of late night’s history, reruns served this purpose. With The Late Show nearing its end, there’s never been a better time to bring that tradition back.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is scheduled to air its final episode on Thursday, May 21, 2026.