The Jay Leno Show premieres; thoughts and comment

Leno returns to the airwaves 90 minutes earlier than before with a revamped show. Kevin Eubanks is back, as is the band (now known as the Prime Time Band).

The show began much as the Tonight Show had, with Leno greeting the audience, and proceeding into his monologue. Leno had a great round of jokes and clips. However, the main clip Leno had during his monologue, a Cheaters skit, mostly fell flat for me. But the rest of the monologue was good.

The next segment featured the actor who played the wedding singer character from “The Hangover” (I can’t remember the guy’s name), in a segment that had him performing for a woman at a car wash. The segment started off amusing, but just dragged on for too long, easily wearing out its welcome.

After another commercial break, Leno was back with his first guest, Jerry Seinfeld. First thing I noticed was the lack of a desk for Leno. The setup this time around has Leno and guest sitting face to face, no desk in the way. This is a great setup, actually.

Anyway, the interview with Seinfeld was great. Jerry had a great bit of fun at the expense of the Jay Leno Show, joking about how he should have a comedy show an hour before Leno’s. Another bit that had the possibility of being good was when Oprah was on via a monitor, and Jerry was leading the interview with her as if Leno wasn’t there. Jerry was great on this, but Oprah fell short. At this point, there was a bit of commotion in the room, so I wasn’t able to hear all of Leno’s interview with Seinfeld. I’ll have to watch this again to hear what was being said. From what I saw, though, it was a good interview.

Tonight’s episode featured Kanye performing and, following on from last night’s…occurrence…at the VMAs, Leno had a sit-down interview with Kanye about what happened. Leno asked the right questions, and I liked how Leno caught Kanye off guard by asking Kanye how he thinks his mom would’ve reacted. Discussion about Kanye and his responses is for elsewhere, though.

Following that was a performance by Rihanna and Kanye that I didn’t much care for.

The show concluded with my personal favorite bit from Leno’s time on the Tonight Show, and that was Headlines. It was always hilarious to watch that, and see the news clippings. I can see why Leno’s saving this for the end of Monday night episodes, but I kinda miss having it be the segment that follows on from the monologue.

Overall, this was the first episode of The Jay Leno Show, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Leno wasn’t on the top of his game. But it’s just the first episode, and it will air five nights a week. I can’t wait to see what comes the rest of the week on TJLS.

I give the premiere episode of The Jay Leno Show a 4 out of 5.