Critics: Better Luck Next Time, Jimmy

Critics weren’t wowed by last night’s debut of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon—but they were willing to cut Jimmy some slack for his “opening-night nerves.” Still, some noted, the show didn’t make good on its promise to be different.

• “A typically stiff debut that nonetheless displays the host's charm and potential,” says Ray Richmond in the Hollywood Reporter. “Fallon is certainly talented enough to deserve a chance to make a go of it."

• “He did an ultra-ordinary monologue—one liners about President Obama and the deficit that sounded like material Jay Leno's writers had faxed over from LA,” writes Ken Tucker in Entertainment Weekly.
• “Fallon, he made sure to let us know Monday, will be putting us to bed with reassuring familiarity,” says Darel Jevens, Chicago Sun-Times.
• "His major challenge in his new talk-show gig is to chill a little. Or even a lot," notes Frazier Moore for the AP.

(More Jimmy Fallon stories.)