I did search and didn't see a thread for this, so here we go...

This is a "new" show (new to me, new to BBCA?, but not new in general (not at all)) on BBC America. I'm not sure what the delay is between airings in Great Britain and the USA, but it doesn't matter. I am loving this show. Each show has 3 top rate guests (at least so far). Tonight's has Eddie Izzard, Glenn Close and William Shatner. I saw another with Ben Stiller, Ewan McGregor and Eminem.

Anyone else watching this show?

I initially discovered this show during a visit to the UK in 2004, so it's been around awhile. It premiered on BBCA just a few weeks ago. I'm excited to see BBCA pick it up as I love Jonathan's cheeky sense of humor. At the moment the airing schedule seems to be all over the place. Next week's show with Sandra Bullock was aired in Britain just last week, but the show with Izzard, Shatner and Glenn Close was clearly several months old. I hope at some point we will get the shows a week or two after their UK airing, which is what BBCA generally does with Graham Norton's show. Another concern I have is that in the UK the show is a full hour with no commercials, and it's clear that the version we are getting in the States is heavily edited. That sucks, but better than nothing I guess.

One nice thing about this show (from my perspective) is that it is pretty much the chat show of choice for American A-listers promoting their stuff in the UK. With Graham's show there are a lot of UK-only celebs that I am barely or not at all familiar with, but Jonathan has a lot of guests who are known to American viewers.

Anyway, I have enjoyed each episode that BBCA has aired so far. I love Eddie Izzard and thought his segment was hilarious, particularly the discussion of when he does and doesn't cross-dress, which I've never quite understood. The Shatner interview was beyond bizarre, but Jonathan handles that sort of interview quite well. Looking forward to future episodes.

Oh, I love this show! I only get to see some of it here and there, but I really like Jonathan Ross' sense of humor. My mom is the only person I know with BBCA, and I usually check her listings when I go home and it's never on. I'm so glad they finally picked it up. What with this and Torchwood and Doctor Who I think I may finally have to buy that next tier of cable to get BBCA.

How could anyone not love a host who has kissed all the members of Take That on the lips?

I think I've seen two of the shows so far, including that last one with Izzard, Close, and Shatner (and Katy Perry, right?). I thought it was great. Izzard was wonderful, and I liked those shots of Close in the green room laughing. But even more than Izzard's segment, I thought Shatner's appearance was hilarious. I last saw him on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, and I was mildly amused. But here with Ross was inspired lunacy.

I was surprised that the audience apparently hadn't heard of Coco the gorilla. They kept laughing whenever Shatner said she knew sign language. Maybe Britains aren't as familiar with Coco as Americans are, assuming that many Americans know who Coco is. But even if an American audience didn't know Coco, I can't imagine them laughing when Shatner said she knows sign language.

I will say that sometimes I have a hard time understanding Ross, mainly because he talks so fast.

I can't recall the other ep I saw. I'm just drawing a blank.

Anyway, I haven't yet scheduled this for regular recordings on my DVR, but I may. Usually I'm drawn to it when a guest I like will be on.

Lily Allen

Oh these short two-syllable names. How can I keep up.

Katy Perry is American & a doppelganger for blue eyed Zoey Deschanel. Lily Allen is British with a wickedly humorous bent to her lyrics & dark eyes.

I hope it's okay to mention that there are Jonathan Ross interviews a'plenty on YouTube. One of my favorites is an old one with a non-tattoo'd, non-beehived, non-trainwreck Amy Winehouse. There's a darling moment when JR asks her if anyone tried to mold her into something she's not and she replies that once someone tried to mold her into a triangle, but she said "noooo....."

ETA - I can never remember which is Katy Perry and which is Lily Allen. I had no idea KP was American! That info may help me keep them straight!

I started watching with the Izzard, Close and Shatner episode, and I enjoyed it a lot. I'll be keeping up with it for a while, at least. Bill Maher is no longer Friday must see TV these days, at any rate.

Out of curiosity, who gets the better ratings in the UK, Graham or Jonathon? They are certainly not apples to apples, but I like them both.

I happened to be in Ireland when the episode with Bono and The Edge originally aired and saw the full show unedited. Thank goodness BBCA edited out parts of the interminably long Dame Edna interview. I just don't find Dame Edna that funny. He/she has some good lines here and there, but parts of the act I find boring and stupid. There was more to the discussion about the gynecologist that was mercifully edited out. Is there something funny about a man imagining what a pelvic exam must be like? I don't get it. And then when Dame Edna interrupted the interview with the wonderful and interesting Anjelica Huston--enough already!

I did enjoy the interview with Bono and The Edge. Bono was tolerable for a change. I like U2's music, but when he starts preaching, I tune out. I do appreciate what he's doing, but there are some troubling contradictions there. Thankfully Jonathan focused on the music. And Dame Edna actually had a funny interruption with the "harder Edge, harder!"

It's been a while since I've seen Dame Edna, and I was surprised at how rambling she (I'll just say 'she') was. It all felt like a long meandering walk in the park, with the occasional funny observation. I was curious about the shots of Anjelica H in the green room -- She often looked perplexed or simply unamused. I even thought that she'd never heard of Dame Edna, but I doubt that's the case. Then when they were sitting together on the couch, I figured I'd completely misread her.

I actually thought it was funny when Dame Edna interrupted Angelica's interview, yet I was simultaneously annoyed.

Superficial observation: I know that Anjelica has always had a long nose -- aquiline? -- but I thought her nose last night looked odd. I don't know if it's simply age, but the shape looked different to me.

I enjoyed Bono and The Edge. I was uncertain as to what Bono meant during his story about dodging Bush's hug when he said "If I wasn't a coward...." I thought he would explain that more. I took it to mean that he wished he had hugged Bush, or allowed Bush to hug him, because that would have been the nice thing to do, but he didn't because he didn't particularly like Bush (or disagreed with most of his policies). Funny story about Sen. Obama saying, "Nice job dodging the hug."

Another voice of agreement on Dame Edna; I remember seeing her traveling show many years ago, and I found her very amusing. Last night? Not so much.

I watched this show for the first time last night and I'm not impressed.

What I don't understand is why have only one guest on stage while the others are on-screen backstage? Who thought of the stupid premise? Why not have them all on the couch like Graham Norton does? To me, that makes for a funnier show...watching all the guests interact with one another.

I guess Jonathan isn't as talented as Graham, so we'll just leave it at that. I don't think I'll be watching another JR show.

I haven't seen that many shows -- maybe four or five? -- and there are some good ones. It all depends on the guests. I don't care for Ross's monologue, but I think he gets to the guests pretty quickly.

The one with William Shatner was great. Other guests I've enjoyed include Sandra Bullock, Benny Andersson (from ABBA), Mitchell & Webb, and Matthew Fox. Your best bet is to tune in only when there's a guest you really like. He's had some guests that I wish I hadn't missed, including Hugh Laurie and Joanna Lumley.

I guess he just wanted to change up the format of a talk show by having only one guest out at a time. I think that can work pretty well if the guest is interesting so that we can concentrate on him/her.

I like Graham's format, but I also like Jonathan's. I think it's a clever idea to show how other guests react to the interview at hand. Other than maybe Craig Ferguson, American late night chat shows seem very generic, so it's nice to see the Brits mess with the formula a bit. Jonathan generally has more guests than Graham, so I'm not sure that Graham's format would work on his show. At some point the stage turns into Grand Central.



That's one thing I really like about Jonathan's show. The last time I watched Letterman, I was watching to see a specific guest, and I was irritated at how much crap I had to sit through to get to the actual guests.

I think the edge that Jonathan has over Graham is that he gets better guests, particularly among American celebs. American celebrities are often very demanding and want to set tight ground rules for any interview, not to mention that some American celebs seem to lack a sense of humor about themselves. An "anything goes" show like Graham's is a nightmare for them. I remember Graham once mentioned that he wasn't supposed to mention the boyfriend of his guest Jessica Biel. Ms. Biel looked highly annoyed. Jonathan is cheeky but seems a bit more willing to kiss a guest's ass than Graham.



I think what he meant was that he had to walk a very fine line in order to maintain a good working relationship with Bush while not alienating his fans and his bandmates. His drummer Larry Mullen recently made some pretty scathing remarks about Bono's dealings with Bush and Tony Blair. I think he felt somewhat cowardly for allowing his concerns about what others would think to influence his actions.



I believe that Jonathan has traditionally gotten higher ratings. I know that the next series of Graham's show will move from BBC2 to BBC1, which already shows Jonathan Ross. The British media is trying to make a bit of a rivalry out of it.

I wish they didn't have the cricket guy on to make room for more of a Ricky interview. Jamie had enough time (although JR kept asking him questions & not letting him finish), but Gervais got short shrift.

Mika's song did sound like Free Love on the Freelove Freeway, but also Belinda Carlisle's Heaven (is a place on earth).

I thought I saw an ad for a marathon of Jonathan Ross episodes over the weekend, but checking my on screen guide didn't show one. Did anyone else see this ad?

I like that he has cricket stars and Brit TV actors on his show, it's a whole new world to me.



That's what Mika's song reminded me of!

I just saw the Barbara Streisand ep. While I think she has amazing talent, in the past I have not been impressed with her in interviews and I figured that's why she didn't do them that often. However, she was really good here. At first I was annoyed that he was going to spend the whole hour on her. She is a big celebrity and all, but I still thought it was too much. He didn't do that with Tom Cruise* or anyone else. But it went by quickly and even the commercial breaks were really short - I kept ffwding way past them and had to back track a lot. The only nitpick I had was with what she was wearing. It was all black so it shouldn't have stood out, but it just did. I can't even really put my finger on it, but something just seemed off.

*Full disclosure, I don't really think much of TC, but he is still a huge star.

I didn't catch this ep.

Like you said, she doesn't do interviews very much, so it makes perfect sense to me why he'd devote the whole show to her. Who knows, it might be a condition her people gave for the interview.

Was this conducted at a different location or the same studio?

Same studio, but a different set up - instead of the desk and couch, it was two chairs and a small table. And she did sing at the end too, which was nice.

I just watched it on YouTube. Pretty good.

Barbra has to have her left (best) side to the audience (altho the camera was shooting her from the front, really). She had Oprah change her set up, too (usually Oprah has her left side to the audience). I liked the way she brightened when talking about architecture. She seems so serious, but I thought this interview showed her lighter side. I liked it.