The Jay Leno Show

The Jay Leno Show is like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. It's comfort food, but it's not great cuisine. It's entirely predictable. It's good in a pinch, when there's nothing else in the cupboard.

What it isn't is groundbreaking. And sometimes, it's not even that funny. Nothing I saw in the shows (or parts of shows) that I saw in its first week was as funny as the show's trailer (the one with Jay and Fred Armisen) which appeared in theaters this summer. The usual bits are funny - headlines, stupid 911 calls, stuff like that - but it's hardly great television. For what it's worth I didn't think the Kanye West interview was scripted, but it was incredibly awkward. The interview with Michael Moore just solidified my opinion that Moore is a really talented idiot, and while Halle Berry's outfit was worth the price of admission, that interview also felt awkward, for no apparent reason. The "10 at 10" - where Jay asks 10 questions of someone who is being filmed at a remote location - was terrible, especially the one with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

The musical guests have been good, and the highlight of the first week was Eric Clapton's guitar solo while playing with Bruce Hornsby. It's nice when Eric reminds us why he's in the Hall of Fame.

I like Jay, didn't much care for his Tonight Show, and will watch this when nothing else is on. But overall, I wish they'd rolled the dice with some more dramas, in the hope that they'd come up with something like ER or Homicide.