Stephen Colbert's Election Night Showtime special is overprepared this time -- and ready to call BS

The Hollywood Reporter

Recently, Variety's Caroline Framke revisited Colbert's 2016 Election Night Showtime special -- titled Stephen Colbert’s Live Election Night Democracy’s Series Finale -- Who's Going to Clean Up This Sh*t? -- calling it an "artifact of bygone shock." "Looking back at the 2016 version now is difficult on several visceral levels, the most basic of which is that it’s almost impossible to view in its entirety," says Framke. "Unless you taped it the night of, it’s not available anywhere. The segments that do still live on the internet in some way, however, are perversely fascinating. No one in the Ed Sullivan Theater — not Colbert, not his producers, not the liberal, overwhelmingly white in-studio audience — expected (Hillary) Clinton to lose, let alone Donald Trump to win. Their instinctive attempts to grapple with that failure highlight so much of what went wrong before the election, and so much of what would happen next." In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter's TV's Top 5 podcast, Late Show showrunner Chris Licht -- who oversaw the 2016 special -- says "we are absolutely overprepared" for this year's Showtime Election Night special, which is being called Stephen Colbert's Election Night 2020: Democracy's Last Stand: Building Back America Great Again Better 2020. "Whereas we four years ago went into the night thinking we have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, there's no poll, no expert, no prognosticator — absolutely no one — can convince us we know what's going to happen this election night," Licht said. "We are prepared for every eventuality. I feel cautiously optimistic we are prepared, and that is thus reducing the anxiety level we didn't feel last time, but we should have." Licht also said there might be a tie-in between CBS News and the Showtime special. "We’re going to be doing something very cool to help bridge that gap," he said. "I don't know that there's ever been a simulcast between a network news coverage and a pay TV election night coverage, live. That might happen. It might not, but it might." Licht also said Colbert and his team are ready if President Trump declares victory prematurely. "Whereas the news organizations … have to be somewhat down the middle on it … we can just be like, 'Bullsh*t, it's not a thing,'" he said. "That would be exciting; not good for our democracy, but it certainly would allow us to literally do what everyone would be screaming at the television."