Reviewed: ‘The Jay Leno Show’ With A Kanye West Apology

I’ll refrain from calling The Jay Leno show terrible, or an abomination, or the death of television as we know it, simply because all of the hype, good and bad, has been just that…hype. I watched the premiere episode of the show tonight, which featured a short interview that Jay conducted with Kanye West about the Taylor Swift incident from just last night (Kanye has been booked as a musical guest on the show for some time – very lucky on Jay’s part) and I was a little underwhelmed at what I saw. For those of you who didn’t watch, I can tell you all you need to know about Jay’s new show on NBC. First, have you ever seen an episode of Jay Leno on The Tonight Show? If so, you’ve seen The Jay Leno show. Despite all of the chatter and talk from NBC about how this was not going to be a talk show on in prime time, and that instead it was going to be an hour long comedy show, it just wasn’t. If you take one of Jay’s Tonight Show episodes, and edit the hell out of the interview segment, and extend his monologue and other “funny” bits, you’ve got his new show in a nutshell.

But, to be fair, the doom-and-gloomers didn’t have it any closer to the mark. I’ve been reading for months now about how Leno’s show is the future of television and that this is the end of television as we know it. I just don’t see this show doing that to television. Sure, it’s taking away 5 hours of scripted television from NBC, and I hate that. But this show simply isn’t impressive or original enough to spell the end of anything in my humble opinion. Again, I’m not saying the show was bad, it just wasn’t anything I haven’t seen Jay doing before. And to be fair, he’s got 4 more nights this week to do new and original stuff. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions too fast. But I’m not wowed at this point. If you liked Jay on late night, you’ll like him in primetime.

Now on to what you’re really reading this article for…Kanye West. I can only imagine that Jay Leno woke up this morning and started reading his online RSS feeds (hey, he’s a modern guy, right?) and when he came across the Kanye story I bet he peed on himself just a little out of excitement. I mean, what are the chances of something like that happening on your show’s premiere night with an already booked guest. Lucky for Jay, Kanye didn’t pull out either, and accepted being interviewed during the show. It wasn’t a long interview, and it didn’t need to be. You can watch the full interview below for yourself, if you missed it.

Kanye seemed sincerely apologetic, which is more than I can say for his attempted blog apology today, however, I’m just not sure I care that he’s sorry. Everybody makes mistakes now and then, but this is a guy who’s shown his arrogance so many times in the past that we’re beyond the point of saying “oops, everyone makes mistakes.” Actions speak louder than words. Based on what he says in the interview, we should be seeing him take those steps to be a better person, but let’s just say I’m not holding my breath at this point. I do thank Jay for one big thing tonight. Thanks Jay for asking Kanye what his mother would have said to him, had she been alive, about what he did today. It was obvious that the question was hard on Kanye, and it needed to be. See for yourself below and let us know what you think. We’ll post the full interview video below the one below as soon as it’s available.

So I ask, is Kanye ready and capable of changing his ways?

The full Interview:

Jay’s Monologue: