Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Amber Ruffin Show’ On Peacock, Where The ‘Late Night’ Writer Takes On The Serious And Silly With Her Can-Do Persona

Amber Ruffin has taken a long road to this moment, where she hosts her own late-night talk show. Stints at the iO Theater, Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, and Second City in two different cities led to being in a YouTube sketch group. But six years ago, she got her big break when Seth Meyers hired her as one of the writers on his new version of Late Night. She’s made such a mark since then, featured in a number of regular segments, that Meyers helped her get her own show. It’s quite a feat, given how few women of color are on late night. Can what she does for Meyers translate to a 24-minute show?

THE AMBER RUFFIN SHOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Amber Ruffin dances onto her set at 30 Rock (8G, the same one as the other show she works on, Late Night With Seth Meyers), settles behind her desk, claps her hands and says, “Yay! We’re doing this!”

The Gist: If you’re not familiar with Ruffin’s work on Late Night, especially the bits she does on camera like “Amber Says What,” you might be surprised at the persona she presents on her new Peacock late-night show, The Amber Ruffin Show. A lot of what she does is vaguely sprightly and pixie-like, especially when she gets giddy about a bit or just the fact that she’s a woman of color with her own late night show (quite the rare thing, as we all know). But she combines that Omahaian “get it done without fuss” attitude with a keen eye on the issues of being Black in America.

There are no interviews and (for now) no audience; just Ruffin and her sidekick/buddy Tarik Davis — “He likes everything,” she says about her friend — and (for now), all the sketches are done in-studio.

She does give a fairly up-to-date monologue, but most of the 24 minutes are filled with more sketch-like material. In one, she sets a “forgiveness clock” after which white people can stop straining to identify with the Black experience. But every time there’s an incident of blatant racism, the clock gets reset. Let’s just say Ruffin got tired of hitting the button so many times. In another bit, she plays a “Cool Auntie” who keeps looking through her massive purse while talking about her lover needing to knock on the door because “it’s my condo.” In another bit, Ruffin uses the refrain of “I can’t believe I have to say this, but” to introduce heady concepts like “you matter” as well as decrying people who complain when people spoil old movies.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ruffin’s sketches have the topicality of Meyers’ version of Late Night, combined with some of the absurdity of one of his predecessors, Conan O’Brien. At times, it feels like Ruffin is playing a part, a la what Stephen Colbert did for a decade on The Colbert Report.

Our Take: Ruffin’s Late Night appearances showed that unique mix we discussed above, which is why, at the tender age of 41, she’s getting her own chance in the spotlight. Since she started off her career in the writer’s room, what she writes is sharp and at times unexpected, like when she listed the topics for Tuesday night’s presidential debate as five variations on “Please Help” and “The Economy.” Think about what she does as sharper versions of what we see on “Weekend Update”, ranging more towards the Michael Che side of the desk than the Colin Jost side.

But we hope to see more of a few of things as this show goes forward — and we hope that NBCU gives her the room to grow on their streaming service. One, we need to see more of what we saw in the “I can’t believe I have to say this” bit, where Amber addresses just how difficult it is not just to be Black, but to be a Black woman in American society. Making fun of the very white male segment of comedy she’s in would be a start. Another thing we would love to see more of is Ruffin’s sense of whimsy mixing with the seriousness of the message she’s trying to get across.

The last thing we want to see, at least at some point, is an audience. We’re sure that everyone involved in the show — Ruffin and fellow EPs Meyers, Jenny Hagel and Michael Shoemaker — had hoped she’d have an audience to riff off by now. The fact that shows are back in the studio, and that SNL plans to do shows in front of tested and masked audiences gives us hope that at least a limited audience can be in the studio for Ruffin soon. But without at least some laughter, from a crew or even an audience full of grips and technicians, some of what she’s doing falls flat. The format lends itself to an audience, and she badly needs to have the feedback fill in some of the silences after she lands funny lines.

Parting Shot: Ruffin says she doesn’t want to say goodbye, so she lets her boss, Meyers, do it from his set. Then she guzzles down a margarita as the credits roll.

Sleeper Star: Tarik Davis plays the part of the amiable sidekick perfectly. Not sure who else will be on the show with the two of them, but he and Ruffin play off each other well.

Most Pilot-y Line: One or two bits were drawn out, like one where she counsels Davis on his feelings about Mary J. Blige being single.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Amber Ruffin is goofy when she needs to be, serious when she has to be, and can go from one to the other pretty smoothly. It’s a skill that not many have. The Amber Ruffin Show is a good showcase for that skill; it just needs the usual late-night-show tweaking for everything to fall into place.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Amber Ruffin Show On Peacock