The @fter midnight & Rolling Taylor Tomlinson Thread

PREMIERES TONIGHT!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iMRAIxE0eI

They've put the premiere on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RI5tgjjwTA

I caught and enjoyed it last night, although I don't know if having it be an hour instead of 30 minutes in that time slot was the best decision. It's pretty amped-up <all the time> without any traditional late night gear-shifting from monologue->sketch->interviews->music/comedian.

pretty astounding size difference on that panel

I was a regular watcher of the show when it was on Comedy Central and Chris Hardwick (yikes) was the host. This definitely feels like the networkified version of that, and the set is pretty fuckin ugly, but I imagine it will settle into a looser vibe as time passes. The debut ep was stiff as a board, though.

wait the format of this show was used before? I haven't made it through the first episode, this just seems like a mess to me

yea, it ran for 600 episodes, and I doubt any of them were even half as bad as the first ep of the new one

insanely flabby at an hour, wasted 1/3 of the time saying “whoa get this!!” at blatant fake engagement bait tiktoks, host’s scripted gags not quite as white-star-level cringe density as the producer’s but written in the same style

I liked the old @midnight, obviously Hardwick is a creep and I'm glad he's off TV but I thought it was a good gig for him...shows like this have to be hosted by someone who comes off like they spend a lot of time online. Taylor Tomlinson is funny but idk kind of a weird fit. and yeah the fact that half the content online is bait nowadays kinda nerfs it anyway.

making this an hour is insane

I watched about 10 minutes of this and it was pretty awful. She's a decent standup but this is just not even a good idea for a show. The three guests' little introductions were enough to make me want to crawl out the window. Like, this is what people think is funny?

On the old show, the daily 'hashtag wars' actually generated some fun responses on twitter. On the remake, when they get to 'hashtag wars' I've noticed that they very explicitly DO NOT list 'X'/'Twitter' as a place to carry on the show daily subject hashtag - only Threads, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. My how the hashtag power has fallen on Elmo's little fascist platform - even CBS can't get behind it!

obviously Hardwick is a creep and I'm glad he's off TV

He hosts a prime-time game show on NBC

Does NBC even count as TV anymore?

whitney cummings is also horrible and i vaguely remember that she was widely disliked by the comedy community, did something change on that or am I mistaken

Agree 1 hour is too long for this format. Can't fathom why CBS wouldn't exploit one of their familiar properties and do a ribald, edgy The Price Is Right instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuR0YztoT0I

Dulce Sloan getting serenaded tonight with "Wonderwall" by Caitlin Peluffo & Jenny Zigrino has done the most to justify the enterprise so far.

Segment starts @ 5:40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0eKmj9Yc_I

^^Also #onethread content earlier in the clip.

It's not quite Richard Dawson losing it over the word "September" (what is?), but Taylor completely breaking up over Randy Sklar riffing on Rednecks riding ostriches is the light I need now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=934jCf5NUYo

^^Starts @ 3:15

For some reason I thought this was a talk show, so I didn't realize it was one of those surreal BBC-styled Numberwang shows that are basically an excuse for the comedian guests to be funny.

hey i was talking about this on the streaming thread. didn't know there was a thread. it totally seems like something i would be the only person watching on this board. it just hits the spot while i clean and price 45s in the bedroom at night. mindless and silly. it has made me laugh! mission accomplished. (everyone totally laughs too much in a fake way sometimes but overall i enjoy that people seem to be having fun. beats watching colbert! which i don't watch.)

I didn't realize it was one of those surreal BBC-styled Numberwang shows that are basically an excuse for the comedian guests to be funny.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, March 12, 2024 8:54 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

as someone who regularly watches james acaster compliations of him being on shows like this, im glad this show exists, those are good clips and i love dulce sloan

And finally Ron Funches, in a splendid yellow striped suit and his championship belt from the original @ Midnight

that's how I originally heard of Ron, it's a good format for him. he was twice as funny as everyone else

I love Ron and I loved the og @ midnight. For people that watched that - I talked to April Rich at a Heavenly show here last year. She was so sweet. I want to be friends with her lol.

Cancelled after TT decides to depart show to tour more.

https://deadline.com/2025/03/after-midnight-canceled-cbs-taylor-tomlinson-1236351453/

That seems unlikely to be true.

Well, yeah. "Late Night Is Dead" Budget cuts etc. (Pretty sure this shuts down the CBS Late Night division)

But at the same time she's spent every weekend of S2 in a different city on the road and heading back to LA afterwards on most weeks to shoot the show seems pretty tough and draining.

"CBS Late Night WEST COAST division"

reviving the silly “hashtag wars” show probably also seemed like a better idea when broken lib Colbert expected a second glorious onward-and-upward term of Sunglasses Joe

Getting the feeling sic isn't caked.

I definitely dk what that means but silly was not a pejorative

I've been enjoying the opening monologues on YouTube so this is sad to read, but I will be seeing TT in London in July, so I guess that's what I get for expecting her to tour internationally.

I don't really know the show but it feels like without it, it will be harder for rising stand ups to get time on TV and get themselves known outside of the E/W coasts.

I liked the stand-up clips of hers that I saw on YouTube for a few months before she was announced for this gig. But when the show itself came on, it didn't do anything for me. Glad to see that she's moving in another direction.

I consume this show via clips showing up on my insta feed, usually cool ppl on there, shame.

https://deadline.com/2025/05/comics-unleashed-with-byron-allen-cbs-late-night-2-1236411297/

CBS is slotting Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen into the 12:30am slot for the 2025/26 broadcast season.

It comes after the network ended After Midnight, which ran for two seasons, once Taylor Tomlinson decided that she wanted to return to stand-up touring. After Midnight will end on June 12.

Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen will begin airing after The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday September 22 with back-to-back, half-hour episodes.

His game show is the worst thing I’ve ever seen on TV.

Back when they replaced Corden reruns with Comics Unleashed reruns it was mildly amusing to see how often they would throw one on with a cancelled and/or dead panelist.

I'd sooner watch an hour of people scraping up roadkill every night at that time than I would anything hosted by Byron Allen.

Last night they reran the first season finale and it was interesting to see both how much tighter After Midnight has gotten since then, and also how much at that time they'd improved since Day 1.

It also has that weird air of something from the summer of '24 where you realize the people on the show have no idea how bad shit was gonna get in just a few months.

More about the Byron Allen deal:

https://latenighter.com/news/inside-the-unusual-deal-that-brought-byron-allen-to-cbs-post-colbert-slot/

Didn't know Allen's company was called "Entertainment Studios"--that's like a Bojack joke or something. I think Vincent Adultman worked there.

It was funny seeing @fter Midnight this week for the first time ever (Chris Fleming was a guest) within days of watching John Mulaney's Everybody's Live because they had the same kind of casual and weird hangout energy.

When you only have a week of shows left, you can go off like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89z-pPbpxic

Excellent retrospective in advance of tonight's series finale: https://latenighter.com/features/we-asked-some-of-our-favorite-after-midnight-guests-what-theyll-miss-most/

Guy Branum (7 appearances/2 wins):
After Midnight was the rare reboot that didn’t feel like a walking corpse. Taylor, head writer Jo Firestone, producers Stephen and Evie Colbert, everyone involved worked to create a space that was open to all the beauty and chaos the contestants onstage could bring. The show never stopped evolving, never stopped trying to find new ways of having fun. Booker Marianne Ways slapping Tom Sandoval, Bob the Drag Queen and Dylan Efron on one episode? The show tried to make magic every night, and it frequently did.

Maria Bamford (7 appearances/2 wins):
Taylor Tomlinson and Jo Firestone and the entire crew made TV show taping the most fun, most low pressure and inviting writing and performing experience I’ve ever had. Joy comes from the top down, and the vibe was consistently delightful, welcoming, and enthusiastic to whatever the comics brought to the show.

They allowed everyone to do exactly what they do best—bringing their exact sense of humor to the show without the sometimes invisible censorship that grows out in high-pressure, highly-produced shows where there is less room for surprise and improvisation (from shyer comics like myself anyways). I always felt encouraged to “Take the Stage”! That is very unusual and a lovely feeling.

Chris Fleming:
I was so blown away by Taylor every time. She has such presence. Irreplaceable. Jo is amazing. Maddy worked SO much with me and respected my bullsh*t way more than I deserved—they were all so artist-friendly, it was insane. I’d be texting pictures to Maddy of the demon baby I was building for a sketch being like “do you think it should have a soul patch?” “Of course it should!” I kinda went into the whole thing thinking how can I go rogue and sneak stuff in, but I never had to because they were so cooperative and creative. A lot of us are quite sad that it’s over because it really felt anomalous to other shows in the sense that they respected us and wanted us to try sh*t out. Sharon [Everitt] is an absolute dream of a director. And writer Sam Taggart is my muse.

Lisa Gilroy:
Funny women RULE the show—Jo Firestone and Caroline Ulwick and Nori Reed and Sophie Buddle and so many of the writers are down to play and collaborate in a way that you really don’t see very often. People seem to be genuinely enjoying their jobs and making each other laugh. The energy is infectious. It’s a very special place overflowing with wildly talented freakazoids.