Stephen Colbert's Late Show finale was a bittersweet, star-packed goodbye

CBS canceled The Late Show, a talk show created in 1993 as David Letterman’s new home after he missed the Tonight Show job at NBC. Under Letterman and later Stephen Colbert, the program became a major late-night institution and a sustained competitor to the Tonight Show. The show ended as the top network late-night program, with its 11:35pm slot immediately taken over by Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed. The cancellation is framed as financial rather than political, while the finale included promotion and a delayed reveal. Colbert used an 80-minute supersized finale with multiple guest interruptions and a running gag about who the final guest would be, culminating in Paul McCartney’s appearance at the refurbished Ed Sullivan Theater.

"Series finales for late night shows are, by their nature, a little odd and also exceedingly rare; usually it's the host's final episode, and not the entire show's, as franchises like The Tonight Show or Late Night continue on with someone new at the wheel. But CBS made the, ah, visionary decision to cancel the Late Show, the talkshow it created in 1993 as a new home for David Letterman after he failed to score the Tonight Show job over at NBC."

"In Letterman's hands, and eventually Stephen Colbert's, the show became an institution and the first real, sustained Tonight Show competitor in years. Indeed, the CBS Late Show leaves the air as the No 1 show in network TV late night, with that 11.35pm real estate immediately and ignominiously rented out to Byron Allen's longtime syndication seat-filler Comics Unleashed. It's a stunning streaming-era abdication that will for ever be tied with US president Donald Trump, even as the network has insisted ... that the decision was purely financial, not political."

"With plenty of strong choices for last guests already sorted David Letterman, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Stewart already dropped by the supersized 80-minute finale made a running gag out of a delayed reveal. Throughout the first half-hour, Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Tim Meadows, Tig Notaro, and Ryan Reynolds interrupted various usual Colbert bits, mostly with the mock assumption that they might be the unnamed final guest."

"Instead, Colbert welcomed Paul McCartney, highlighting the show's occupation (and CBS's impending abandonment) of the refurbished Ed Sullivan Theater, where McCartney famously performed back"

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