From The Comic's Comic

Taylor Tomlinson’s second gig hosting a late-night TV showcase for stand-up comedians will be decidedly bigger than her first, as Stephen Colbert announced Wednesday night that Tomlinson will take over the CBS slot following his Late Show with After Midnight, premiering early next year.

“Happy Birthday,” Colbert told Tomlinson, who turns 30 on Saturday. “I got you a network show.”

Tomlinson joked that despite having two critically-acclaimed Netflix stand-up specials and a third on the way, and selling out larger and larger theaters on the road, “I’ve never had a real job,” adding: “I’ve been doing stand-up since I was 16, which is not a job.”

Her Netflix debut in 2020, Quarter-Life Crisis, landed on my Top 10 list that year, and her follow-up, Look At You, ranked even higher on my Top 10 list last year. Tomlinson has filmed her third Netflix special already on her current theater run, which included two sold-out dates at Radio City Music Hall and ends later this month, “The Have It All Tour.”

And now she’s entering the rarefied air of broadcast network late-night TV hosts. This year’s celebrated Strike Force Five collaboration unintentionally reminded us all that in 2023, the only late-night comedy TV hosts were white men (Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver). Cable and streaming networks have abandoned recent efforts fronted by women such as Samantha Bee on TBS, Ziwe for Showtime and Amber Ruffin for Peacock, while Robin Thede followed up her short-lived run on BET with an award-winning sketch series for HBO. Busy Philipps, Mo’Nique, Kathy Griffin, Nikki Glaser and Sara Schaefer, and Wanda Sykes all have been there and done that for brief periods on cable.

Sarah Silverman (Hulu) and Chelsea Handler (E!) also have had their own shows, and both of them still seem interested in wanting to return via The Daily Show on Comedy Central. But the list of women who’ve top-lined their own network shows in modern-day network late-night includes Joan Rivers, Lilly Singh, and that’s about it.

So who’s Tomlinson? “If you don’t know who I am, don’t worry. I barely know myself,” she joked on Wednesday’s Late Show.

Tomlinson got her first major TV exposure in 2015 as a contestant on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, where she made it to the final 10.

But eagle-eyed viewers already had spotted her in episodes of Laughs, the late-night syndicated stand-up showcase created by Steve Hofstetter that aired on weekends mostly over FOX stations. She was popping up regularly in the first season of Laughs in 2014, and when she returned to host an episode in 2016, she welcomed viewers by saying: “We have the biggest comedy stars of tomorrow right here today. Yeah. You get to see the future.”

Tomlinson was only 22 when she said those words on TV. She has become undoubtedly the biggest of those comedy stars, and her future is now.

A New Face at Montreal’s Just For Laughs in 2017 and one of Variety’s 10 Comics To Watch in 2018, Tomlinson co-hosted What Just Happened??! with Fred Savage in 2019, and now After Midnight in 2024.

After Midnight is the spiritual successor to @Midnight, which ran from 2013-2017 on Comedy Central hosted by Chris Hardwick, and the actual successor to The Late Late Show with James Corden, which ended in April the weekend before the WGA strike. Much like @Midnight, After Midnight will dole out POINTS! on weeknights to a panel of comedians delivering funny answers to topical and trivial subjects in a fake game show based on the news and Internet trends over social media. David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants produced The Late Late Show, and similarly, Colbert’s Spartina Productions will oversee After Midnight alongside Funny or Die and other partners from the previous @Midnight.

“We are thrilled to be reunited with our friends at Funny Or Die,” Colbert said. “My hope is that, every night, After Midnight will be just as ridiculous as the internet is every day. Plus, the original @midnight aired after The Colbert Report, so welcoming this new show to 12:30 feels like coming home.”

Jason U. Nadler of Serious Business, one of @midnight‘s co-creators, also will serve as an EP, and @midnight‘s showrunner, Jack Martin, will return to co-showrun After Midnight with Eric Pierce. Jo Firestone got the gig as After Midnight‘s head writer and co-EP, and will head out to LA. Alexx Wells also was named a co-EP.

An actual premiere date is still TBD, but episodes of After Midnight will air at 12:37 a.m. Eastern/Pacific on CBS and available for streaming on Paramount+.

Congrats, Taylor!