A Little Late with Lilly Singh
A late-night show hosted by Lilly Singh on NBC.
A Little Late with Lilly Singh is an American late-night talk show that aired on NBC from September 16, 2019, to June 3, 2021. Hosted by Canadian comedian and internet celebrity Lilly Singh, it was the third and final original program of NBC's late-night lineup, airing at 1:37 a.m. ET/PT. Singh was the first openly bisexual person and the first person of Indian and South Asian descent to host an American broadcast major network late-night talk show.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Late-night talk show
- Creator
- Lilly Singh
- Writer
- Head writer:
- Sean O'Conner (2019–2020)
- Chelsea Davison (2021)
- Director
- Lilly Singh; Neil Punsalan
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Seasons
- 2
- Episodes
- 177
Facts from the source article.
History
NBC's late-night lineup once included a third original show, Last Call with Carson Daly, which began in 2002. It started as a studio talk show but later shifted to on-location interviews and performances. In February 2019, NBC announced the show would end after its 2,000th episode, as Daly wanted to focus on Today, The Voice, and other projects. The network planned to replace it with a new program. NBC co-chairman George Cheeks saw the time slot as a creative playground for a personality emphasizing digital relevance over ratings. Chrissy Teigen was considered but declined. Former Late Night with Conan O'Brien producer John Irwin suggested YouTube star Lilly Singh, citing her skill with both serious interviews and comedy. On March 14, 2019, NBC officially announced A Little Late with Lilly Singh. That evening, Singh promoted the series on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She became the first woman among the current generation of major broadcast network late-night hosts and the first to publicly identify as bisexual. The series was executive produced by Singh, her business partner Polly Auritt, John Irwin, and others, with Aliyah Silverstein as showrunner.
Format
The show blended interviews, comedy sketches, and commentary rants. Its first season steered clear of news satire and other topical material, with the production schedule and a preference for humor and Singh’s own life over current events cited as reasons. The initial season’s set resembled those of other late-night programs. For season two, production moved to a Los Angeles house with a minimal crew. The show then incorporated more topical commentary, touching on subjects like Vice President Kamala Harris and the Proud Boys. While the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the shift, Singh told Deadline Hollywood she found the studio uncomfortable, calling it a “creative crutch.” The new setting, she said, created a “more inviting and warm casual” atmosphere, allowed for more behind-the-scenes content, and eliminated the need for live-to-tape filming. Singh also took on more writing for sketches. During the season premiere, she joked that filming without an audience “sounds a lot like YouTube and I don’t know if I have enough experience.”
Broadcast
A Little Late debuted on September 16, 2019, with Mindy Kaling as the first guest. That episode hit the show's YouTube channel at 10:00 p.m. ET before its TV premiere. A special hour-long primetime edition followed on September 18, 2019, right after the America's Got Talent season 14 finale, featuring Christina Aguilera, Tony Hale, Mandy Moore, Kenan Thompson, Milo Ventimiglia, and 5 Seconds of Summer. NBC had promoted a planned appearance by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, but it was cut before the broadcast. In Canada, Global picked up the show, airing it an hour earlier than in the U.S. as a lead-out from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In February 2021, NBC said Friday reruns of A Little Late would temporarily be swapped for Peacock's The Amber Ruffin Show. The series stayed in reruns after its final episode until August 13, 2021. The following Monday, that half-hour slot went to affiliates for local newscasts, other programming, or a replay of NBC Nightly News.
Reception
Critics were generally kind to the first season of A Little Late with Lilly Singh. On Rotten Tomatoes, the season earned an 82% approval rating from eleven critics, averaging a score of six out of ten. The site’s consensus praised Singh as “delightful” and noted her energetic approach was willing to experiment with the late-night format. Metacritic gave the season a weighted score of 62 out of 100 based on four reviews, which it categorized as “generally favorable.” The premiere episode posted ratings that were steady when compared to the finale of Last Call. However, during the early part of fall 2019, the show averaged 666,000 viewers per episode and a 0.16 rating among adults 18–49, numbers that fell short of Last Call’s 780,000 viewers from the same period the year before. By May 2020, The Hollywood Reporter described the first season’s ratings as “comparable” to Last Call’s, and noted that the show led all first-year programs in the 2019–20 season in online social engagement. In a positive review, Shirley Li of The Atlantic felt Singh’s monologues could be “awkward,” but found she shone during guest interviews, where she delivered sharp, off-the-cuff humor. Caroline Framke of Variety also praised Singh as an engaged interviewer who could guide a conversation effectively. The segment “Lilly Is Struggling to Date Women” received a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Outstanding Variety or Talk Show Episode. Another segment, “Lilly Responds to Comments About Her Sexuality,” won that same award at the following year’s ceremony. The series was also nominated for an MTV Movie & TV Award for Best Talk/Topical Show, and Singh earned a Canadian Screen Award nomination as host.
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