The Wormhole Effect: Late Night's Final Fade Out The finale of Stephen Colbert's Late Show was a spectacle that defied easy categorization – part comedy nerd coda, part bittersweet sendoff, and part nostalgic tribute to a bygone era.
As the studio audience sang along with McCartney and Costello, something more profound was at play: the decline of late night television's collective culture.
For years, Colbert's show had been the epicenter of a war between comedy that spoke truth to power and corporate interests seeking to silence it.