Stream It Or Skip It: ‘That’s My Time With David Letterman’ On Netflix, Where The Late-Night Legend Hosts And Interviews Stand-Up Comedians

The Netflix Is A Joke Fest, which took place between April 28 – May 8, yielded a ton of programming for the streamer, whether it’s for video streaming or audio-only podcasts. One of the shows that came out of that festival involves David Letterman, coming out with a show that’s much closer to his late-night roots than anything he’s done since he left that daypart seven years ago.

THAT’S MY TIME WITH DAVID LETTERMAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: David Letterman comes out on stage to a standing ovation. He good-naturedly tells the audience to stop, and says, “I’ve been alive a long time, and I know people don’t like me that much.”

The Gist: Recorded during the April 28 – May 8 Netflix Is A Joke Fest, That’s My Time With David Letterman brings the late-night legend back somewhat to his roots. Instead of serious and semi-serious interviews with entertainment and political notables, like on his other Netflix series My First Guest Needs No Introduction, Letterman concentrates purely on comedy here.

In each 18-minute episode, Letterman does a five-minute monologue and interacts a bit with the audience. Then he introduces the featured stand-up comic, who does the usual “tight 5” you see on a late-night show. In the first three episodes, the comedians featured are Sam Morril, Naomi Ekperigin and Brian Simpson. After the stand-up does their set, Letterman interviews them for the remaining 8 minutes, giving the comics more room to wedge in more jokes, the classic “sitdown stand-up” method that comics have been doing since Johnny Carson was king.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Take the interview, desk bit and musical segments out of Letterman’s version of Late Night and The Late Show, and you’ve got That’s My Time.

Our Take: Like most stand-up segments you see on late night, what we see on That’s My Time is hit and miss. We liked Simpson’s misanthropy, hating the fact that people can’t differentiate between “ammonia” and “pneumonia.” He was the only one of the three who really took advantage of being on Netflix, peppering his five minutes with plenty of language. But we liked Ekperigin talking about her “Jewboo”, and Morill’s personal line about his biological father not being a great guy “or I would not refer to him as my ‘biological father'”.

But these episodes are almost as much about Dave than about the comedians he’s featuring. We know that Dave’s flinty edginess has mellowed during his beard-wearing semi-retirement, but his dry self-deprecation hasn’t gone anywhere. And what we noticed is that Dave is insanely relaxed during these segments, in a way we never saw during all the years he was doing late night.

There’s a couple of reasons why we think he’s that way. One, featuring stand-ups is something that’s always been at the core of either of his late-night shows. And even during the monologues, which are written by head writer Mike Sweeney and writer Mike Gibbons, he feels completely at home. But there’s the added element where Dave just doesn’t give as much a fig about this show than his late night shows. It’s not like he doesn’t care, but we’re pretty sure he doesn’t beat himself up like he used to when a show went poorly.

Dave is just happy to be on stage talking to funny people, and it shows in his manner and how relaxed he is during the interview segment. Of course, with the help of pre-interviews and a backstage meeting before the show, Dave is able to skillfully lead the comedians into doing other pieces of standup. But he does ask personal questions, like when he talked to Simpson about being a foster kid who went directly into the Marines after aging out of the foster program. But Dave generally keeps things light, falling back on the skills he used to interview thousands of stand-ups during the 33 years he was in late night.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: In each episode, Dave expresses appreciation for meeting the particular comedian then says “thanks” and “good night”, when we know he’s just going to go backstage, change his shirt and blazer, and come back out for the next comedian.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to the audience member he handed cards to, for a monologue bit about “things you never hear in L.A.” (examples: “Can we get some more butter?” or “Maybe this shouldn’t be made into a movie.”) When he tells the audience member she’s there to assist and hand him cards, she quips, “I’m Paul,” referring to Letterman’s longtime bandleader/sidekick Paul Shaffer.

Most Pilot-y Line: Ekperigin asks Dave if she can feel his beard. She says it has a “soft, cotton candy vibe, but well-conditioned.” Dave, appropriately charmed but uncomfortable, unleashes a patented Letterman ad lib: “And, periodically, if you’re lucky, you might find lasagna in there.” Funny line, of course, especially that he chose the inherently funny word “lasagna.” But the imagery is a little messy to contemplate.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you want to see David Letterman come close to his classic late night persona for the first time since he left The Late Show seven years ago, binge the relatively quick episodes of That’s My Time With David Letterman. 

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.