You can bet the control room at tonight’s 78th Primetime Emmy Awards will be keeping a camera trained on Stephen Colbert‘s seat, and that he’ll be one of the night’s most frequent cutaways. Think Taylor Swift at a Chiefs game: a subplot within the greater whole.
The nomination gives them a pretext. Colbert’s Late Show is up for Outstanding Variety Series, one of five nominees, and it enters the night having already won six Emmys this year at last weekend’s pre-telecast ceremonies, including Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series.
But the reason the director keeps coming back to Colbert won’t really be the race. It’ll be everything around it.
Because for the last four months, Colbert has been doing something unusual for one of television’s most familiar faces: staying almost entirely out of view.
Since The Late Show finale on May 21 and his surprise return 24 hours later on Only in Monroe, there have only been a few glimpses of him at public events, plus the occasional social media post.
For ten years, Colbert was a fixed point at 11:35 p.m., folded into millions of before-bed routines.
For plenty of others, the habit came through YouTube clips, social feeds, and the broader media conversation his show generated each day. Colbert’s nightly presence reverberated well beyond 11:35. Then, suddenly, it stopped.
It’s a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has occupied a regular place in our daily lives. Walter Cronkite was behind the CBS Evening News desk every night until he wasn’t. Oprah Winfrey spent 25 years presiding over weekday afternoons, then one day her show was over. Late night has produced its own versions of the phenomenon. Johnny Carson essentially disappeared from public view after retiring, while David Letterman receded for a time before gradually resurfacing on his own terms.
Former presidents experience perhaps the most extreme version of it. For years, they’re the focal point of round-the-clock news coverage. Then their term ends and, literally overnight, they’re private citizens. Someone the country has been accustomed to seeing every day suddenly drops almost entirely from view.
Colbert has been living a smaller-scale version of that these last few months—with one key difference: the disappearance wasn’t his choice.
That’s what makes his return to public view tonight—and Tuesday night, when he’s scheduled to return to late night for the first time since his exit, across the desk from Jimmy Kimmel—so intriguing.
The closest parallel may be Conan O’Brien, whose 2010 exit from NBC was followed by a contractually mandated period away from television. When that restriction finally lifted, O’Brien resurfaced in a big way, sitting for a highly anticipated 60 Minutes interview that effectively marked the start of his post-NBC career.
Whatever Colbert’s post-Late Show life ultimately looks like, this week offers the first real glimpse of it. Monday night, he’ll be one of the most watched people in the room whether he ever takes the stage or not. Tuesday night, the focus shifts from watching Colbert to hearing from him.
