The Late Show with Stephen Colbert formally confirms ‘Russia Week’
CBS confirmed on Monday that starting on Monday, June 17 (exactly one week from now), the late-night show will feature some of what was filmed in Europe earlier this summer. Colbert first announced the trip in a post on social media, and while over there also appeared on one of their own late-night shows.
The press release offered up some of the following in terms of what exactly you can expect:
With Russian/American relations dominating the current news cycle, Colbert went to Russia and colluded with his crew to document the visit. Throughout “Russia Week,” THE LATE SHOW will air pieces shot while Colbert was in St. Petersburg and Moscow, featuring his interactions with the Russian people, his interview and vodka shots on the Russian late night television talk show “Evening Urgant,” and lessons he learned on how to live the oligarch lifestyle from Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov.
Notice some of the key words in hee, including “colluded” and “oligarch lifestyle.” CBS isn’t messing around, folks!
Colbert himself had the following to say about the trip, which of course included some Donald Trump humor in the process:
“I was asked to go to Russia by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant to meet with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to my show … Donald Trump Jr.’s father knew nothing of the meeting or these events. Or evidently, much else.”
Colbert’s far from the first late-night host to make the trip to Russia the past few years (Samantha Bee and John Oliver also have), but he’s probably got some of the widest amount of material from the trip. It’s going to be a great chance for CBS to get some primo ratings right in the middle of the summer, which should help them further extend some of their dominance that they are feeling right now thanks to Big Brother being on the air. This is smart and certainly timely, but will it be funny? We applaud Stephen for having the guts to make the trip happen, but we don’t want to proclaim it comedy genius without seeing first if some of the ideas for sketches actually pan out into something interesting. Some of the Trump humor on The Late Show and other places remains really funny, but there’s also plenty of it that feels at this point somewhat derivative.
Are you excited to see Russia Week on The Late Show?
For the time being, we want to hear more of your thoughts on the matter in the comments! Meanwhile, be sure to head over to the link here in the event you do want to secure some other insight on The Late Show and everything that it’s up to.