Commentary: 'The Late Show' is ending, but not Stephen Colbert or late-night TV

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

In September 2015, when Stephen Colbert inherited CBS’ “The Late Show” from David Letterman, its first and only host, late-night television was experiencing something of a golden age.The internet had yet to strangle linear television; it was taken for granted that any self-respecting broadcast network or ambitious cable station would air late-night (and even late, late-night) talk shows.

Many of these had been on long enough to be considered institutions, and though hosts would come and go, they would typically occupy their chair for a good long time.Each turnover being a rare event, most every fresh host has been greeted with a chorus of “Who? What? Why?” before time accords the newcomer a patina of inevitability.It was, I suppose, moderately surprising that, when Letterman — the greatest of them all with the possible exception of Johnny Carson — gave up “The Late Show” after 23 seasons, he was succeeded by a man whose previous job, of nine years, was playing a conservative pundit in an ironic half-hour political satire on basic cable, spun off from Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.”But as the host of “The Colbert Report,” Colbert’s cultural penetration was deep, his fame already substantial.

Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Wired, Outside, Sports Illustrated and Dartmouth Alumni Magazine had all put him on their covers.He’d had an ice cream flavor, a bald eagle, a spider, a turtle and a space-station treadmill named after him; he testified before Congress in character on behalf of migrant workers; and coined the very useful word “truthiness.” One knew to wait and see.

Television Our writers shared their favorite moments on the late-night talk show, which include lighthearted and serious interviews about grief, faith and politics.The Colbert who leaves “The Late Show” this week — not of his own volition — is and isn’t th...