[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by SportsRacer

It actually wasn't that bad.

Pros:
- The writing. A.D. Miles is the head writer, which is AWESOME and means there will be a steady flow of The State-esque humor in the show. The target demographic bit was pretty funny.
- The monologue. Fallon doesn't have a character to break or a Will Ferrell to play off of, which helps. With the already-solid writing, he only needs to get a little more comfortable for the monologue to be pretty good. Tonight's monologue had some clunkers (as do even the best monologues), but there were also some pretty great jokes, and Fallon delivered them well. The best part (perhaps of the entire show) was Slow Jammin' the News, which brings us to the next pro...
- THE ROOTS. Seriously, what an awesome house band. They're the main reason I watched tonight, and they didn't disappoint. They can play any style of music and are pretty funny in their own right.

Cons:
- The interviews. God, Jimmy Fallon is ****ing awful at interviewing. He doesn't know how to just have an interesting, funny conversation. Maybe some of it is first-night jitters, but seriously, he was completely overmatched. A super-intimidating legend like DeNiro on the first night? Really? Not a great move. Probably should have started with Tina Fey, who he worked with for years, to ease him into it. They probably would have at least been able to have something that resembled a conversation.
- Lick it for 10. An alright concept, but it went on way too long and with no payoff. Hopefully this was just the writing staff trying to take it easy on the first night. And Fallon was just awkward with the audience members.
- Fallon in general, really. The stuff that was funny tonight was funny despite Fallon, or because of somebody else (like Slow Jammin' the News, which was all Black Thought)

I pretty much agree with you. Fallon did manage to be funny when engaging with the audience during the monologue. It was a surprising amount of audience interaction, and he handled it well: "Please escort that man out of the building... I hate it when my father drinks," etc. I hope that the audience feels free to shout things out at Jimmy every night.