Jonathan Storm: Grading Fallon's first week

So here's the genius late-night strategy:

Get, like, 10 writers and one of the most respected bands around, featuring a dude with a comb that perpetually sticks out of his head, and the world's only hip-hop sousaphonist.

Then pick the sweetest kid in the business to be the host. Nobody will expect too much from him. Even if they did, it would be just mean to mock him savagely, as happened last time there was a big-deal late-night shake-up.

Most likely, after a couple of years of society's generosity and the glacial rate of change in late night, he'll figure out what he's doing, and everything will be fine.

Judging from the first week of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, however, the new kid is going to have to change almost everything to get to a consistently entertaining show.

And this conclusion comes to you from an observer who saw promise in the "gently unpredictable, sometimes genuinely funny" Conan O'Brien, while crowds of critics were caterwauling 15 years ago.

Rather than rush to judgment, we gave Fallon a whole week. Sure, that's a blink in late-night time, but there should be faint signs of progress.

No way. The best interview came opening night, with the hilarious Justin Timberlake, who demonstrated what a phenomenal multi-talent he is. The second night featured the week's funniest packaged bit, about the horrible decline of the chair that came in second in the competition to contain the host's fanny every night.

Speaking of chairs, the big old softie next to Fallon's desk is superb: All the girlish actors can scrunch up in cute poses, while larger, less foldable folk sprawl and get comfortable. With an adjoining couch, the show is trying to resurrect the old Tonight Show celebrity slide-over, which frequently generated unforeseen fun. But that requires that guests stay for the whole show, and last week, most of the big shots didn't.

Predictably inconsistent (late-night shows are constant works in progress), the show drifted downward daily until it hit its nadir four nights out, as Fallon practically licked Donald Trump's high-priced shoes. It took the irrepressible effervescence of Drew Barrymore to pick it up Friday.

Late Night was front-loaded with NBC retainers, including Trump and Rachel Maddow, and Fallon friends, or at least good acquaintances (Barrymore, Robert De Niro, Timberlake, Cameron Diaz, Mario Batali). Tina Fey fit both categories. In most cases, their eagerness to help out saved the new guy from too much heavy lifting, but that wasn't always a plus.

"The Apprentice is my favorite show. It's the best show. It's better than anything on any network," Fallon gushed to Trump, whose weird hair signals an equally weird ego that will overlook reality in the service of its master.

"The ratings have been fantastic," said Trump. "It's a Top 10 show already."

Episode one of the new edition of Celebrity Apprentice was No. 8 among 18-49ers for the week, so Trump wasn't totally lying, but it was 27th in total viewers and the lowest-rated Apprentice premiere ever.

A decent host would have pressed him. A more established host wouldn't have had him on at all. Fallon will never be David Letterman, who relegated Survivor losers to a few seconds at the side of the stage when CBS sought to promote its reality show, and he will have to temper his puppy-dog eagerness to be nice, which has been a core quality his entire career. Even plodding Jay Leno inserts the skewer periodically.

Things get better, guest-wise, this week: The only NBC-er skedded is Tracy Morgan. My 96-year-old mother could interview him, and it would be fun.

Interviews, the heart of any talk show, become less important as the hour gets later. But Fallon has things to work on. The best thing about his pedestrian monologues is that they were short, unlike the skits, bits and videos, which, holding over from Fallon's Saturday Night Live days (a constant theme all week), were too long.

Fallon does possess the No. 1 host qualification: quick wit. Though most of the audience gag setups were squirm-worthy, he does work well, and frequently, with average Joes and Janes. One of the week's high points: a young woman singing karaoke to guest Jon Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" (and then doing a duet with her rock-star hero).

"Roots, you got that?" Fallon asked, as the need for a tune came up that was decidedly non-R&B, jazz, hip-hop or any other of the 200,000 genres the Roots are known for.

Move over, Richie Sambora. Yes, they did, complete with shouts of "wanted!" when called for. They also did fine game-show-style backup for staged bits, smoking commercial lead-ins and lead-outs, and the usual stuff expected of any talk-show band, all with a heavy beat and the deadest of deadpan. ?uestlove (what name do you expect for a man with a comb in his head?) has already supplanted Kevin Eubanks on the chart of top talk-show foils. Is Paul Shaffer next?

When the host gets a little less eager, and all those writers figure out what works, maybe they'll wind up with a decent TV show. After an excruciating start on CBS's Late Late Show, Craig Ferguson has done it.

Batali made soft shells to finish the week. (Cooking's cool, too, on this show.) Fallon slapped crabs in a sandwich. The maestro arranged his crustaceans elegantly on a plate.

"We're outlining the difference between a late-night talk-show host and a professional chef," he said. "I'm one of those."

"I'm neither," Fallon instantly replied. "I'm trying as hard as I can, people."

TV Review

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

12:35 a.m., NBC10.