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Photograph by Scott Kowalchyk / CBS / Getty
Vinson Cunningham
A critic covering television
Stephen Colbert had a pretty decent amount of time to plan the final broadcast of “The Late Show” last night. He got the news back in July, then shared it in turn with his audience, his face glistening with a still fresh coat of shock, betrayal, and wounded anger. He’d overplayed his hand with the biggies at CBS, calling them out for capitulating to Donald Trump, right in the middle of the network’s attempt to finalize a deal (now fatefully inked) with David Ellison’s Skydance Media—and he ended up with a cancelled show. I don’t think those ten months to plan helped him so much, though.
