I decided to check out the return of late-night TV without writers tonight, just to see what they would do. I haven't gotten a chance to watch the recordings of Leno or Letterman (who has his writers), but I did see a chunk of Conan (through the Bob Saget interview). Admittedly it was funny, but more in how bizzare and awkward it was rather than anything else. I mean, he spent a half hour talking about the beard he grew, spinning his wedding ring and having a producer time it, describing the writers' strike, and playing a pre-recorded "what we're doing during the strike" where he just went around trying to say funny things about anything he came across in the office. It was amusing because it was something different, but this type of material can't last more than a couple of shows.

Conan with his "strike beard"

However, it's perfectly possible this was intentional. It eased viewers back into watching the show, and without wasting any potentially good material they may have come up with. Considering they've had the 2 months of the strike plus some lead time (since the strike didn't come as a surprise), they've got to have come up with some good ideas. But with the timeline of the strike still unknown, it makes sense that they wouldn't want to rapidly blow through the material they've likely been stockpiling. I guess it won't be too long before we see if that's the case or not. My guess would be they've come up with enough stuff to last at least 3 to 4 weeks on the air, because otherwise it wouldn't make much sense to get back on the air knowing you can't keep up producing enough new material to weather the strike.

It was also interesting to see that Conan devoted quite a bit of time to explaining the strike and his support of writers, even getting a couple of jabs in at the network execs.