On August 29, Spotify surprise-announced the launch of Strike Force Five, a new podcast collaboration between the late-night hosts Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and the Jimmies (Kimmel and Fallon). Inspired by a series of bonding Zooms organized by Kimmel, the show was created to fundraise for each of their crews, who since May 2 have been unable to work due to the Writers Guild of America strike. It boasted a premise — five show-biz vets trade secrets about their highly specific jobs — as digestible and breezy as their TV programs. It also came equipped with generous big-money co-sponsors (the beverage conglomerate Diageo and Ryan Reynolds’s Mint Mobile), a global release platform (Spotify’s own Megaphone), and, most importantly, no James Corden, who just three months earlier left his post at The Late Late Show.
Regardless of your feelings on the strike or these hosts, their collaboration is historic. The so-called Strike Force is, for one thing, the first true podcasting supergroup ever assembled. While other series feature as many as three A-listers at once, or have in success made several hosts famous, no podcast in the medium’s short history has been anchored by so many established entertainment titans working together simultaneously, Wilburys-style. Then there is the late night of it all. Traditionally, American talk-show hosts are pitted against one another by their networks in a battle to the top of the ratings, a conflict stretching back to at least 1992, when David Letterman and Jay Leno fought tooth and nail to succeed the legendary Johnny Carson. In Strike Force’s first episode, “Five Late Night Hosts Talk at the Same Time for the First Time,†Kimmel and Colbert acknowledge how unthinkable working together would have been in the era of the previous WGA strike when both were ostensible rivals of the likes of Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, and Craig Ferguson. Only thanks to the binge-watch-made devaluation of event programming and the crumbling of broadcast television more broadly are men in these positions even allowed to be seen in the same room together, at least metaphorically.
But as a work of entertainment, Strike Force Five is more uneven. Over the six episodes released so far (none of which Spotify made available to press in advance), the podcast has alternated between a rollicking, rambunctious meeting of some of the world’s quickest comic minds and a surface-level “Who wanted this?†look into the sparkly lives of five megarich television stars. The quality of the conversations depends on the hosts, who take turns leading each episode in an effort to keep things flowing. Colbert’s first host turn, for example — in episode two, “A Second Episode About First Episodes†— moves at a crisp, professional clip. He is all questions and answers, the living embodiment of black glasses and a three-piece power suit; think Ira Glass on a treadmill. But his approach gets results. Several of the series’ best stories, including one about how Jim Belushi received a much-deserved smacking, and another about Alec Baldwin lambasting the Late Night With Seth Meyers set, are revealed thanks to his prodding. And Colbert himself has rarely sounded so freely chatty. Those who know him only from his days as the (mostly) clean-shaven star of The Colbert Report and The Late Show will find their ears buzzing when he says “fuck,†“shit,†and “anal†in that fine broadcaster’s voice — even if, as it sometimes feels, he is just doing so to remind himself he can.
Oliver, inherently something of an outsider as the sole host accustomed to the relative freedom of pay cable, is by contrast a purely reactive presence. He is rarely heard in the first and second episodes, chiming in only when asked a direct question or, rather uncomfortably, to defend himself. Even when it is his turn at bat in episode four, “Awards Show Screwups, Late Night Multiverse & Batman Wants to Murder Kimmel,†Oliver is the group’s punching bag, constantly fielding little jabs at his voice, intelligence, or looks from the other guys. (Not that he seems surprised: In one anecdote, he relates once being described by one of his own employees as what a person sees “reflected back in a spoon.â€)
Only in episode five, a table-turning look at the lives of each hosts’ spouse, does Oliver finally come alive, and only then to pile on to Fallon for his sloppy handling of a text conversation with Oliver’s wife. That sequence — the funniest of any episode yet, as well as the meanest — is emblematic of the larger dynamic at play between these five sharply defined male archetypes, the heartfelt camaraderie and fratty sarcasm shifting from moment to moment. It makes a kind of cosmic sense when Oliver lambasts Fallon, like an owl sniping a vole. But there is a hint of savage one-upmanship in the zingers Kimmel lobs at his pals in the pilot, particularly when it comes to Fallon, whom he exposes for suggesting that rivers loop while the two vacationed together celebrity-style at Kimmel’s South Fork Lodge.
If anyone can be said to be just present enough, it is Meyers, whose speed is astounding. When Colbert reveals in episode one that his mother secretly shtupped Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, Meyers cracks back, “My mom drinks her coffee out of Ferdinand Marcos’s skull.†He is also the most endearing presence, thanks in part to his family’s involvement in several episodes. At one point, the former “Weekend Update†anchor tells a story about borrowing the 20 minutes before recording an episode to take a secret nap he knows his wife will resent. Then in the following episode, one of his kids unleashes a bloodcurdling scream, forcing him to briefly abandon the Zoom. The other fathers all start talking trash until he walks back into the room, at which point Colbert tries to pivot to a nonsense story about Jack Paar. Meyers does not miss a beat: “You were shitting on me. Fake story about fucking Jack Paar.â€
This break in politesse, brief as it is, offers the clearest look so far of the latent tension undergirding this entire enterprise. Try as the hosts might to present a united front for the sakes of their staffs, certain discussions on Strike Force Five feel more like those photo ops with all the living ex-presidents smiling together than casual chats between pals. Prior to accusations of his creating a toxic workplace on The Tonight Show surfaced, Fallon already sounded disengaged from his cohort. On one occasion, he quietly attempts to leave a recording early, leading Colbert to call him out on-air. Fallon cops to it, but the episode nonetheless ends abruptly to accommodate his schedule. On another, Oliver and Meyers excoriate Fallon for his inability to host a full episode despite over a decade of interviewing experience. “Your staff need their wages doubled when you come back,†Oliver half-jokes.
Whether such moments are harbingers of greater conflict to come or simply a side effect of putting five white men each used to being the center of attention together for hours at a time remains unknown. So too is how long this once-in-a-lifetime (at least, so far) experiment will actually last. Strike Force Five is as close as podcasts have yet come to the HBO limited series: a momentous gathering of world-class entertainers performing at their highest possible wattages. Spotify has promised a minimum of 12 episodes with more theoretically to come if the strike bleeds into the autumn. If the first six are any indication, these comedians share a desperate desire to keep entertaining, even if it means splitting the spotlight. But with the WGA and AMPTP recently agreeing to restart negotiations and one host facing allegations of a toxic workplace, Strike Force Five’s very existence may reach an expiration date sooner than expected.