The TV Addict 

Tarn, well said.

While this may not be the popular opinion among ‘critics’ — Leno’s biggest strength is that he’s a great people person and a fantastic interviewer. Conversely, Letterman always seems to be put off my interviewing guests, as if its beneath him.

Sometimes I’m disappointed by the things I read here…

I mean, I did not watch all shows, only their “monologues” except for Letterman, and while I may disagree with what you said – I liked Conan’s opening best I think, and did not found Letterman to be bad. I mean, he was as “good” as usual, but I was never a fan of his. But it was all you could expect from him I’d say, and he had great stuff –

But what I can’t see is why you, who call yourself theTVaddict, seem not to care that Leno did write his own monologue, he wrote jokes and while that may have been funny and entertaining, that was also against the WGA rules!

Don’t you care that Leno, writer & WGA member, broke the rules and is therefore helping the networks and not the writers, don’t you support the writers and want the strike to be resolved asap ?

Cause supporting (what) Leno (did) or promotiong reality TV is not the way to do it…

/rant
Apologies, I love you still

Fred,

Truthfully, I’m not that familiar with the Strike rules to comment on Jay’s monologue. I sort of assumed, perhaps incorrectly so, that as long as he wasn’t using his writers, it was okay to fire off jokes.

Were they written? Off the top of his head? They were obviously thought out ahead of time. But did he put pen to paper?

I 100% support the writers as I’ve stated on numerous occasions and I hope the WGA clarifies with Leno the rules. But how is what he did so different from Conan’s opening?

I’m not an expert either, but I thought that it was ok if you wrote your own material, but not ok if you had others help write it. I know that they protested when ellen went back to work, but they haven’t made a big deal about jay or conan.

as for last night, I thought jay’s monologue was WAY better than david’s!!! david seemed out of sync, maybe it was the beard that was throwing him off. lol

I would say I am pretty much polar opposite. I think the winner of the night was blatantly Craig Ferguson. His innovative, no-guest, all brilliantly performed writing was executed fantastically and his energy was the best of the group. I think Conan came in second overall. I don’t think it’s because of anything he said as much as the fact that I admire that he made it pretty clear how important the writers are to him, but in a humorous way. He almost did the show inconspicuously begrudgingly to make a point, but still get laughs. Letterman seemed ‘off’ to me, I didn’t laugh much at all. Not a good sign for him, since he has writers, but I appreciated the digs at the AMPTP! He definitely knows how to get a point across admirably. Leno was appealing to me in that ‘train wreck’ sense–he was completely floundering. The show was unbelievably mundane the first night, though it’s been somewhat better the last two nights. Perhaps he needed some warming up? I don’t know. Overall, though, there was absolutely no contest for me. Craig Ferguson performed fantastically and has done so each night since.

Kimmel? I can’t be bothered wasting my life to watch such drivel. Not worth wasting DVR time anyway.