‘You are living on a different planet’

Letterman’s first guest is Barack Obama, who comes out after a disappointingly short opening monologue from Letterman.

Stupid pet tricks are in David Letterman’s rearview mirror.

In the photo above, the fun-loving ex-president is evidently enjoying a lighthearted chuckle with the bearded one over an office-building fire hose (or possibly a fire extinguisher). “And really it has a longer look than a traditional late-night interview”.

Like Carson, Letterman has been a source of fascination – someone who came into millions of homes every night, yet who has always been guarded in his public-facing demeanor.

“Although Letterman is too experienced and too wry by nature to engage in outright platitudes, his series’ premiere feels like a lot of generalities and old news masquerading as something more profound”, she wrote. And a little more than two and a half years after Letterman “retired”, he’s officially back.

Netflix has found a prestigious new showcase for recently-retired talk show veteran David Letterman.

It helps that they obviously like and trust each other, from past interview encounters and from subtle add-ons like Letterman having been invited to events at the White House. The problem was he used to have to do both.

“My Next Guest With Needs No Introduction with David Letterman” now sits at an early rating of 60% on the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, after its debut, Barack Obama-featuring episode premiered Friday on the streaming service.

“It was really touching because Sasha tries to be cool, so she didn’t want to admit that she was going to miss her sister”.

Paul Shaffer, the bandleader on Letterman’s previous series, provides the theme music, but he’s not on stage or on hand. This is Dave, unplugged.

With the departure of Dave and CBS stablemate Craig Ferguson from late night, it appeared for a short time that the art of after-hours conversation was doomed; fortunately, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert began taking an earnest interest in maintaining at least a modicum of intelligent late-night discourse.

A subsequent communique from Netflix p.r. described the Obama interview: “In the interview, Obama discusses his family, life after the presidency and what he views as the pressing issues facing our country”.

The interview was taped before an audience at City College of NY in Manhattan, according to Fox News. But the spare set and approach does allow for more give and take, in a conversational manner, than a talk show where guests have something to plug normally would. Letterman invites guesses from the audience.

“Recently”, Letterman explains, “I did something that was so important to me…” At that show, Franken often turned the questions around on Letterman, leading to a kind of a back and forth where each person takes a turn at getting interviewed.

For Letterman, the new show isn’t merely a comeback; it’s a reboot.