Mr. O'Brien's Neighborhood

By Richard Zoglin

SHOW: LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN

TIME: WEEKNIGHTS, 12:30 a.m. EDT, NBC

THE BOTTOM LINE: He's survived the pressure and the hype; now can he learn how to run a talk show?

The late-night war has grown so exhausting for everyone concerned that Conan O'Brien's debut on NBC -- the third network talk show to launch in the late hours in as many weeks -- was the occasion mainly for a big sigh of relief. First because O'Brien, a little-known writer for The Simpsons picked to replace David Letterman, didn't wet his pants, spill coffee on a guest or otherwise embarrass himself in his long-awaited debut. And second because viewers can finally get back to the ordinary, relaxed rhythm of watching late- night TV, rather than being jarred awake every night by another Television Event.

In his first show, O'Brien defused the hype over his arrival with aplomb and good humor. In a taped opening bit, he was seen jauntily walking to work on D- day, as everyone from his apartment doorman to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw warned, "You'd better be good." When John Goodman appeared, the screen flashed FIRST GUEST and he was mobbed by photographers. When Drew Barrymore showed a provocative photo of herself in a Guess? jeans ad, O'Brien yelped with mock lust, then showed a cue card that read, OW! WOW! OWWW! "Everything's written down for me," he said. "The network is so scared."

As O'Brien settled into the job, however, his neophyte weaknesses began to show. He leans into his guests (Tony Randall, Mary Matalin and Ed McMahon among others last week) like a high school kid on a job interview. His sidekick, Andy Richter, is a superfluous appendage. The prepared comedy bits have occasionally been funny (a takeoff on Letterman's Small-Town News in which the "real" items were faked) but more often tacky (bogus interviews with celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, with moving mouths superimposed on photos of them). O'Brien has decorated his rec-room set with pictures of TV personalities like Ernie Kovacs and Jack Paar. Unfortunately, he comes across more as a preppie Mr. Rogers.

O'Brien, of course, will get some time to hone his act. Airing an hour later than most of his late-night competitors, he is under less pressure to deliver a big audience. Ratings on opening night, NBC was happy to reveal, exceeded what Letterman got in the same time period a year ago. Letterman, meanwhile, is rolling along on his new CBS show, regularly beating Tonight's Jay Leno and Fox's new Chevy Chase Show (which since its premiere has slipped from second to third place).

The main disappointment of Late Night with Conan O'Brien is that it fits so comfortably into the Letterman-fashioned late-night mold. Another tall, Waspy male with a facetious, wise-guy attitude, drawing writers from the same pool of ex-Harvard Lampoon staff members to help deliver a nightly mix of topical jokes and goofy comedy bits. In its search for someone to take over the time period where Letterman reinvented the talk show, NBC might have tried something truly different: a show with real interviews, for instance (a Larry King for the twentysomething generation), or maybe even (radical thought) a woman at the helm. O'Brien was the late-night host nobody knew. Now that he's arrived, it seems we know him all too well.