The overnight ratings for Conan O'Brien's second show were, as everyone expected, way down from his first night when he beat both Letterman and Leno. Last night, both of them beat him even though his main guest was Tom Hanks, who is about the biggest name Conan's likely to have on for a while. I assume they didn't book Hanks for Show #1 because they figured they didn't need him then and that putting him on the second night might minimize the inevitable drop. Mr. Hanks was, as usual, very funny but mostly talking about Conan's recent job relocations. One measure of whether the new show will work is whether Conan and his guests can soon drop that topic and find anything else to talk about. I think his Tonight Show for its first few weeks spent way too much time talking about how Conan O'Brien was hosting The Tonight Show.
Of course, O'Brien isn't really competing with Dave or Jay. He's competing against the cost-effectiveness of TBS having his show there as opposed to more reruns of The King of Queens. If that's the game and everyone understands it, I think he'll win.
Tonight, Jay Leno's big guest is Christine O'Donnell, which will probably give him the biggest tune-in. I have this awful feeling that we're in for a cold opening that'll go something like this: Jay runs into Christine in the hall and thanks her for agreeing to do the show. She says it's her pleasure. He says, "Hey, I hope you don't mind all those jokes I told about you being a witch." She says, "No, they didn't bother me at all." Then he starts to go off to do the show and the lights flash and she turns him into a frog or otherwise puts a curse on him. Something like that.