Future Tense

NBC has turned late night into a disaster. They'd been on top for over a decade, but in forcing out Jay Leno for Conan O'Brien, they lost their lead at 11:30 and got rid of a success at 12:30 (not to mention saddled themselves with low ratings at 10).

But the worst thing is what the move did to Conan. In making it bigger and more for mass appeal, he's lost a lot of what I liked. Some of the quirk is gone, as is some of the intelligence.

For instance, one of his signature bits was "In The Year 2000," where Conan and a guest, over unsettling, futuristic background music, would muse on the bizarre things that'll happen on that far-off date. The sketch started not too long before the actual year 2000, and part of the joke was the homage to the silly futurism of old, cheap sci-fi and horror films. If anything, it got even funnier when they continued past the year 2000.

But since moving to 11:30, they've changed the routine to "In The Year 3ooo." I'm sure they had some meeting and decided the whole concept/homage was too confusing. So they've "updated" it and made the concept less funny. (It doesn't even make sense, in its own way, since the jokes often deal with what characters alive today will be doing.)