You hit all of the points, I agree. I was surprised with Jerry Seinfeld. He just seemed like he was off a little from what I expect from him. I really enjoyed the part with President Obama's speech from 60 minutes and Jay Leno asking questions, it was funny, liked all of it. I was not that aware of the Kayne West incident, but he seemed really thoughtful when asked how his mom would feel, almost had to feel sorry for him. However, not sure if this makes up for his interuption of the speech of Taylor Swift, why are people so rude these days and then have to apologize for this inappropriate behavior. Somehow I missed the Oprah part, I think I left the room for a minute. Anyway overall I really liked it and I will watch Jay again and see if this goes or not. Off to a good start in my opinion.

Not even the Jay Leno premiere could pull me away from A&E's Hoarders last night. Although, during a commercial, I did flip over to catch that man singing to the girl at the carwash. It was dreadful. I was never so happy to get back to the woman who took all day to clean her one bathroom. Thank you for listening.

Sorry is just not good enough for such behavior.

Hi Kay, I think many people feel that way -- and resent celebrities thinking they can behave horribly and then go on TV and apology, and everything is better. West's action's were egregious and set a horrible example especially for young men. Thanks. Z

ChickaBOOMer: Leno Reax
http://chickaboomer.blogspot.com/2009/09/leno-reax.html

Where is the Leno I enjoyed for so many years? If Leno continues with the current format the show is destined to failure as the shortest run talk show in history. "Good Night"

I agree with Ken O

This was awful TV.
I like Leno, always have but last night I was very disappointed.

Interesting ... I know it's easy to find conspiracy theories behind everything if you succumb to the urge ... but doesn't anyone else feel like the Kanye West appearance wreaked of a staged event? Leno's producers haven't forgotten the fact that it was the Hugh Grant interview after the solicitation of a prostitute bust that started his lead again Letterman and this seemed like an attempt to synthetically recreate that.

Hi Mark, Thanks for the comment. I say this only half in kidding, but if the NBC exedcutives with this clever, they wouldn't be in last place and sinking deeper with a lousy fall schedule. But who knows any more in the crazed and dazed state of media these days? Thanks. Z

Are you kidding me? That show was terrible. After three, what four(?), months off that's all Jay could come up with? A new set and some dry jokes? And I liked the old Tonight Show with Jay Leno...

How was the Kanye West appology 'hot'? The whole time he was on screen I felt uneasy, and then that long, 30 seconds or so (ages on tv), of dead silence it took the doof to reply to a simple question. And WHAT appology? The guy never said he was sorry for anything... yes, lets liven up a comedy hour with a dull, awkward 'appology' from some over hyped pop star.

The only bit I liked was the Obama interview... but come on... that's all?

And what did Opera add, really? A few stupid comments and her smiling face was all I got.... maybe someone else cares about Opera... I don't. If I wanted to watch Opera, she has her own show!

Most of the program I was wondering how long this show will last if it doesn't improve FAST.

Hello Jared, Did you manage to read the whole review, especially the part that begins, "Now the bad news..."? Please try it, and then let me know what you think. Thasnks.Z

I think the thing at the VMAs was staged. All the timing for it and Jay leno's show seem too good to be true. Everyone in involved profitted for it. I am I wrong?

Hi Brian, Please see my previous responsew on this. But I do think there is something profound about how cynical we have become about major media companies. Thanks.Z

Z, I felt exactly as you, and some other online critics, did about the seating for the segments with Seinfeld and West. Jack Paar, on his weekly early 1960's show, did away with the desk. I seem to recall that they used an arrangement similar to that on the Mike Douglas show, with the host on a swivel chair surrounded in a semi circle by the guests. Having the music come earlier than the clsoing segment was a pretty good move, but overall the show lacked punch and continuity. The Seinfeld segment seemed to be rehearsed and awkward.

It will be interesting to see how the format evolves. I cannot envision watching Leno every night, but hopefully it will become an option for when there is "nothing on" the other zillion channels my satellite dish picks up.

Z
I'm not a Leno guy (I prefer Letterman and Craig Ferguson) but I am surprised that critics would pan the show as a Tonight Show rehash. What else would it be, or what was anyone else expecting? I do think it's a shame that Network Dramas are being forced out by Reality shows and this type of programming.

Jay is great! I so glad he dumped john melendez. He needs to find a side kick now.

I did not watch the premiere of Jay Leno because Kanye was scheduled to appear. I will refuse to watch or listen to anything he is part of from now on. My hope is that he just goes away.

If Jay Leno really wanted to separate himself from all of the other talk show wags, he would have cancelled Kanye West and told the audience that he had heard enough of what he had to say when he interrupted Taylor Swift at the VMA's.

That would have taken guts. Instead, he revealed himself to be just what we thought, a ratings hustler like everyone else!

I didn't watch the show, however, i've been listening to how people have responded to Kanye West's actions at the awards show.

He clearly was wrong and there's nothing he can say or do to make up for it.

I do have a problem w/how everyone seems so up in arms in regard to his lack of civility, which pervades all corners of our society, seeing as the response to the congressman's interruption of our President wasn't so one-sided as this response. Wrong is wrong, but being outraged about an interruption on an awards show compared to the utter disrespect for the President himself and the office seems to pale in comparison, in my mind.

And it's funny that many of the people who are condeming Mr. West and as a result, supporting Ms. Swift, are the same people who have a great dislike for the very music, videos, performers, and their very often excessive and immoral lifestyles exhulted by such a show. Bottom line, though, is he acted like a jerk and is known for such acts already. Maybe he shouldn't receive any more invitations to perform, award or attend such shows for a while..entertainers can't entertain without an audience!

Simply put, Jay Leno will need to do a lot more than what he showed last night. It did not even reach the level of his Tonight Show performances, much less what a prime time show needs for sustainability. WBAL-TV must be cringing today, realizing that their 11pm news shows are in jeopardy.

I think you and everyone else that has replied misses the point. Jay is not there to win the time slot, just to get an audience. The only thing NBC could do cheaper is run infomercials. Was it the greatest show ever? No...but what show is on its very first night. Personally I always thought Jay should have moved onto a show like Top Gear on the BBC. That is a show he is made for. I don't mind the chair format, it seems less stuffy. Give it time. Z, you have never been a fan of Leno so I doubt you were looking at this with out a jaundiced eye.

I thought Jay's opening night
was fabulous-great set, funny jokes and warm fuzzies!
However, I did not appreciate LA Times' Mary McNamara's scurrilous review of the show. She condemned the familiarity of the show which I find very strange since Leno's format has kept him at number one for yesrs.
It appears many do not want
him to succeed. If viewers are concerned, they should direct
their comments to NBC advertisers, who have emphatically discounted the Boomer generation, another
poor move. Boomers are the biggest demographic group with the most money. I can see why NBC rates #4--che faccia bruta!(Italian- What an ugly face)Jay,Keep up the good work

I confess I only watched the obviously contrived , phony, on-stage fan-frenzy opening, and maybe 3/4's of Jay's monologue, plus about the last two-thirds of the Jay-Z-Rihanna-Kayne West Hip-Hop number toward the tail-end of the debut of "The Jay Leno Show" last evening. Oh, and his hackneyed, weak closing "Headlines" bit, which was to me kind of a cheesy, lightweight, anti-climactic way to wrap up the much-hyped show's grand Premiere launch. I'm no huge Hip-Hop aficionado, but I think that Jay's producers should have just wrapped (rapped ? HA!) the show w/ the high-energy Hip-Hop musical performance like Letterman always does, and Leno would do in his former incarnation on his "Tonight Show".

For me, this 'new' 'Jay Leno Show' seems like merely an eviscerated "Tonight Show" (A "Tonight Show"-lite, if you will), pretty much retaining the former predictable format and routine, yet allowing a modicum of superficial change w/ the new stage and set, but still keeping his veteran band on board headed-up by the likable Kevin Eubanks.

When I first got wind of NBC's announcement that they were giving Leno his own show at 10:00PM every week-night in that prime-time slot this Fall, just as Conan O'Brien was starting to launch his debut as Leno's heir-apparent on the "Tonight Show", I immediately thought this amounted to almost an outright betrayal of Conan, in that Leno's hour of comedy schtick (bookending the "Tonight Show" and Jay's new show, w/ the local NBC Network newscast caught in the middle) could, in the long-term, damage Conan's ratings, not to mention jeopardize the nightly NBC news viewership. (A lot, of course, would ultimately hinge on the relative future success of Leno's new show.)

Conan's largest demographic probably skews a lot younger than the older, traditional "Tonight Show" viewing audience, and if last night's 'Leno Show' debut is any indicator of things to come, it appears that Jay and his producers are trying to appeal to a younger crowd, perhaps alienating many in Jay's older, less 'hip', "Tonight Show" fan-base.

I mean, let's get real. How many seniors (55+) are hanging on the edge of their Lazy-Boys to hear the ultimate narcissist, publicity-hound, Kayne West 'apologies' for his blatantly moronic, selfish, and gauche actions at the MTV video awards the other night? Very few, I imagine.

Featured celeb-guest Jerry Seinfeld, who admittedly appeals to a huge cross-section of American viewers, to me has become a little smarmy, and slightly too self-satisfied 'post-"Seinfeld-mega-$uccess', and acts like it's almost an imposition to show up for a guest-spot teet-a-tete, 'cause 'frankly, I really don't need the cash, or the aggravation.' (I mean he has a great marriage and three beautiful kids and more moolah than King Midas and Croesus combined.)

Frankly, I would have thought Leno's 17-year-run hosting the "Tonight Show" would have been a satisfying T.V. long-term gig for him, and he would have been perfectly content to spend more time w/ his wife Mavis, and his expensive toys (read vintage cars and motorcycles), after his "Tonight Show" tenure had ended. To keep up his 'comedy-chops' he could have just continued his regular comedy-club stand-up routine, which even when he was hosting his regular "Tonight Show" he pursued in his 'off-time', usually on weekends, or during the summer hiatuses.

Bottom-line, I think Jay Leno is the classic A-type, workaholic, slightly avaricious personality, who nevertheless DOES find time in his personal-life, off-hours, to have genuine fun. He and Mavis never had kids, so Jay could basically spend his adulthood being the kid in the family, although a very talented, funny, and extremely successful, and wealthy one when he shows himself in public as a responsible adult... his on-air T.V. persona.

I would never begrudge all Leno's success over the years, and I can see where he was up to the challenge of taking on this new prime-time nightly venture at the urgings of the NBC programming department. $$$$$$$

I feel the late Johnny Carson, the ultimate showman and incomparable King of the late-night talk-show genre, set THE standard for leaving T.V. on a high-note w/ both dignity and panache, retiring to a comfortable, out of the Hollywood 'glare', private life, till he finally left us, very quietly, for his ultimate 'curtain call', several years back.

Leno is still relatively young (60?) and must feel he's still at the top of his (comedy) game, unlike Johnny Carson who had a unprecedented, amazing 30-year run, and left his show in his mid-seventies. (Yet mind you, still as sharp and witty as ever. I guess 30 years just had a nice symmetry to it?)

I truly wish Jay Leno well, and must say that ONE SHOW does not a season make. Who knows? Jay just might defy the odds and make a successful go of his latest prime-time endeavor. Of course one Leno show costs roughly one-third of what the average one-hour dramatic series episode runs, so if he garners even three-quarters of his former "Tonight Show" viewership, the NBC bean-counters will be fairly content, in that they are saving mucho dinero at the front-end in production costs.

Like a wily, veteran boxer caught on the ropes, bobbing and weaving side to side in a defensive crouch, legs feeling like rubber, as he knows he may, any second, catch that crushing knock-out blow, the major Networks (and we all know who they are) are kind of figuratively reeling on the ropes w/ this novel and fast evolving fight for T.V. viewers w/ Cable and the upstart Internet entering the fray, and creating virtually a whole new, fluid, fractured paradigm in the combative television arena.

Is the 'Leno Show' just the tip of the programming-iceberg in terms of the early 21st-century model for prime-time Network T.V. fare? Are we witnessing the death-knell of Network scripted serial dramas, and sitcoms, and the reign of quasi and full-on Reality shows?....for me, personally, a sad and perhaps fatal scenario for Network T.V. .

Will the Networks, the very foundation of the T.V. medium as we 'boomers' know it, go the way of the dinosaur, as Cable and the Internet continue to gain more and more attention from a seemingly insatiable, yet fickle viewing audience, while those crucial advertising dollars are lured away.

My bet is that the Networks will avoid that ultimate knock-out punch, but will rise from off the canvas a much leaner, meaner, yet very different incarnation of their former selves. There are a few more rounds yet to come, but sadly it just may be 'the final countdown' for Network T.V. as we have come to know and love it for all these many decades.

Stay tuned boys and girls.......oh, and you too, your AARPers out there. (HA! HA!)

ALEX

The Jay Leno with West was a big downer for Jay. He should have kicked West to the curb where he belongs.

Really didn't get a chance to see the new Leno show. A comment on Kanye West's problem (what else can you call it?) After viewing the incident, it wasn't about Beyonce it was about West trying to bring attention to himself. Jerk.

Enough with this Kanye West thing. Kanye should be faulted but MTV has gotten a free pass. It is their fault for this outrageous behavior. Kanye has done this before. I recently watched some MTV or was it VH1 (same difference) award show where Sasha put his butt in some rapper's face. Oh the hilarity... NOT.

MTV just got a different reaction this time. This time it wasn't funny but strangely MTV has escaped all culpability.

From the debacle at the Super Bowl, to over the top "reality" shows, to strange antics at their award shows, MTV somehow always escapes blame. Someone please hold their feet to the fire for a change.

There's a reason why this show is starting at 10 pm. It's to get the 'baby boomer' audience, who now find it difficult to stay up past 11.

Guess I am in the minority as I love Jay Leno. In fact, I TiVo him at 10:00 and play him back at 11:30 p.m., his God-given rightful time slot. Since there's nothing worth watching at 11:30 anymore, owning a DVR has made it possible to change those dynamics.

If Jay's show fails at 10, he'll eventually land at ABC or Fox where the late night ratings wars will heat up once again. Conan won't even factor into the equation as Jay and Dave battle it out for supremacy.

Either way, Jay comes out the winner. Zucker's decision to fix something that wasn't broke to begin with was ill-fated.

What a joke! Kanye West didn't give a good ---! His fake retreat into his deep soul was soooo bogus. Anyone can bow their head, rub it in quiet anguish and hopefully, pass it off as pain and redemption. Funny, it didn't take the talentless yo to start plugging his newest release and then perform. Kanye is like all the others who havebeen caught & then they say I'm sorry, but it's not from what they did but rather for being caught.

Lastly, how couldthose folks on TODAY say that's was sooo moving; nothing moved Kanye is just another no-talent. If he could sing or compsoe tthen he'd be a singer, but he's not he's nothing.

Only class act in the group was Beyonce, who can, dance and act and also act like a classy person

Kanye West needs to learn to grow up. I feel very bad for Taylor Swift, who won this award for the very first time. Kanye acted like a stupid glory-hog, and his Leno appearance reminded me too much of Jacquin Pheonix's similarly staged 'uncomfortable' appearance on The Tonight Show. On a separate note, while I am a fan of Leno, this 10 pm show idea is just not a good one. NBC should lose Conan and give Jay the Tonight Show back again.

Hi, Please read my post on "The View: The show that scared Kanye West." I think you will like it. Z