‘After Midnight’ Renewed For Season 2 At CBS
The Taylor Tomlinson-hosted late night game show will continue into the upcoming 2024-2025 season
Without a doubt the greatest hashtag wars of all time rage on. CBS has renewed After Midnight, the Taylor Tomlinson-hosted revival of Comedy Central game show @midnight for season 2.
Premiering in January as the long-awaited long-term replacement for The Late Late Show, the series features a panel of three celebrity guests, including a large pool of comedians, who compete in a series of topical segments from pop culture and social media. While some of those segments include “Group Chat” (which was “Rapid Refresh” in the original) and “Hashtag Wars”, a wider variety of games have been played for the extra time to play with compared to the original which only had a half-hour timeslot. And to fill the quota in acknowledgment of what it replaced in a rapidly-changing late night television environment, it lovingly includes “The Talk Show Portion”. Unlike the original, the goal is no longer to “win the internet”. Instead the winner usually receives a gag prize, which could be for example Tom Brady-signed boxer shorts one night or Tomlinson’s own haunted doll the next.
The May 21 episode saw a bunch of changes. New episodes open with a monologue by Tomlinson, the "Talk Show Portion" became the third segment, while "Hashtag Wars" became the elimination game. The For The Win (FTW) final game, which carried over from the original, became largely retired in favor of a wild card interchangeable game. Two aspects Wikipedia’s episode list is surprisingly keeping track of are not only the prize, but the games being played in place of For The Win, which is good because it’s already been a dozen episodes of different games that are too many to list here.
Tomlinson relished in the renewal in the three episodes last week produced after the announcement. It was indeed quite worthy of celebrating. A lot of the comedians like Thomas Lennon, Doug Benson, John Hodgman, Paul F. Tompkins appeared on the original run, as well as “Weird” Al Yankovic. This has also boasted Patty Guggenheim, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Betsy Sodaro in the same episode, as well as Kel Mitchell, Jerry O’Connell, Lisa Ann Walter, Andy Richter, Max Greenfield, Jason Ritter, Echo Kellum, Bert Kreischer, Kate Micucci and Jenna Ushkowitz.
The executive statement came from Amy Reisenbach, President of CBS Entertainment, reading “Taylor is a gifted comedian who brings a unique voice, energy and plenty of rizz to late night. I learned rizz is a real word thanks to the show. We’re excited for more of her daily smart takes about the dumbest things on the Internet.” Jack Martin, showrunner of all four original seasons of @midnight, splits duties as co-showrunner alongside Eric Pierce. They and Stephen Colbert executive produce with Carrie Byalick, president of Colbert’s Spartina Industries, The Late Show executive producer Tom Purcell, Colbert’s wife Evelyn McGee Colbert and his manager James Dixon of Dixon Talen. Additional executive producers include Joe Farrell, Mike Farah, Whitney Hodack and Henry R. Muñoz III from Funny Or Die and Jason U. Nadler of Serious Business, who co-created the original.
Source: Deadline