Remember Conan? He’s back, shorter
Can less be more? “Conan” (11 p.m., TBS, TV-14) returns after several months, retooled to a half-hour showcase. Elements like an in-house band have been eliminated, perhaps in the hopes of accentuating clip-friendly segments over traditional television talk show shenanigans.
Long seen as the smartest, or at least the most cerebral, comic working in late-night, O’Brien is also famous for his time writing for “The Simpsons,” when he came up with one of the more brilliant moments of that show’s early period, the “monorail” episode, sending up “The Music Man,” and featuring the voice of the late, great Phil Hartman.
O’Brien’s brief “Tonight Show” experience demonstrated that his twitchy presence and knowing wit may have appealed to a coveted and elusive young male audience, but did not break through to the mainstream.
Increasingly, the audience for “Conan” has straddled that fine line between “select” and “small.” When the “Adult Swim” programming block began attracting attention, it was often cited that their strange, little (and inexpensive) cartoons were attracting more viewers than “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
It should be interesting to see if a shorter show, retrofitted to be Twitterand YouTube- friendly, will reach a wider audience.
An unabashed fan of old-fashioned entertainers including Johnny Carson and Bob Hope, O’Brien and his shows have avoided the hyper-topicality of some late-night shows and the postmodern “fake news” approach of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The lack of partisan passions, which once seemed old-fashioned, may actually work in his favor now that politics and obsession with Individual 1 saturates so many corners of popular culture.
O’Brien’s first guest on “Conan” 2.0 is Tom Hanks. Careful viewers may recall that the “Bosom Buddies” star also appeared on the final episode of O’Brien’s short-lived stint as “Tonight Show” host.
› Jackie drowns her sorrows on the season
finale of “The Conners” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-14). And what a season. It’s hard to recall any other show (“Roseanne”) rebooted to such strong ratings only to be canceled due to obnoxious racism from its star and then be re-rebooted with another title after the star was fired and her character killed off via painkiller overdose.
Despite all that, cast member Laurie Metcalf expressed hope to “Entertainment Tonight” that a second season would unfold.
› “Frontline” (10 p.m.,
PBS, check local listings) examines the persistence of black lung disease among America’s coal miners and the industry’s failure to help them, and efforts to cover it up.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› Television journalists including Christiane Amanpour, Ann Curry and Lisa Ling explore their family trees on “Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr.” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings).
Contact Kevin McDonough at kevin .tvguy@gmail.com.