Late night talk show hosts tend to either fail immediately or last forever, which is why it seems that announcements of changes in late night tend to call forth cries that [name of new host] is certain to bomb spectacularly. This was true when utter unknown Conan O'Brien was named as Late Night host to replace David Letterman, and it's certainly the case now that Jimmy Fallon has been designated as the Late Night successor to O'Brien, now kicked upstairs to Jay Leno's chair.

O'Brien has been the first to concede that his early days hosting Late Night were legitimately awful. His inexperience in front of the camera was obvious; his interviewing, still not a strength, was beyond hopeless; and no one could figure out if Andy Richter was a real sidekick or some kind of spoof. Hosting a talk show is a true art, as can be seen by the number of talented people who have tried it without success.

So it makes sense that NBC is giving audiences a chance to get re-acquainted with Fallon in advance of the premiere of his version of Late Night on March 2. Brief clips that NBC is calling "webisodes" -- even though they aren't really episodic -- are being posted at the show's site every weeknight at 12:30 a.m.

In the two weeks that Fallon has been updating, we've gotten a look at the new studio (the same one from which The Tonight Show aired prior to its move to LA), a mockup of the set, the writing staff, announcer Steve Higgins and the show's house band, The Roots -- by far the hippest thing Fallon has ever been associated with (and this is a man who spent a lot of time sharing a stage with Tina Fey). Fallon is spending one day a week answering viewer questions; this and the fact that he is joined up on eighteen separate social networking sites indicate that the new Late Night will be the latest in a long line of shows that promises to get all interactive with us only to abandon this element within weeks.

The most striking thing about these little videos is how boyish Fallon still seems, ten years after his Saturday Night Live debut. Both Letterman and O'Brien were often compared to cool frat brothers in their time hosting Late Night -- but even though Letterman was the same age when he began doing the show as Fallon is today, he came across as more mature, as did O'Brien once he got more comfortable.

With a few exceptions, the videos aren't really trying to be funny or to give us an idea of the sort of humor that Fallon wants to put front and center on his show. In fact, several of the clips show him essentially acting as a straight man opposite current SNL cast members Will Forte (singing a proposed theme song) and Fred Armisen (posing as a "difficult interview" and demonstrating improv chops that Fallon can't match), as well as announcer Higgins, who brings up Fallon's forgettable film Taxi.

The snippets we've seen so far don't really address the concerns that so many have about Fallon as the host of this show, or any talk show. For starters, Late Night has been around long enough to become an institution in its own right, and Fallon's background is quite different from that of his predecessors. Letterman had displayed a unique sensibility as host of a short-lived daytime talk show and he was (and is) famously non-cuddly. O'Brien came out of the Harvard humor tradition and he hasn't been afraid to get a little surrealistic on occasion. But Fallon's credits are thoroughly mainstream: SNL and unambitious screen comedies. The Roots aside, Fallon seems unlikely to put any kind of anti-establishment stamp on Late Night, and his desire to have audiences like him is palpable.

There's also the issue of whether or not Fallon can believably fill one of the unofficial roles of a late night host: commenting on the news of the day. True, he co-anchored "Weekend Update" on SNL, but Fallon has more or less admitted that he had never been much of a news junkie and that Fey was the brains of that operation. Finally, Fallon always seemed uneasy behind the Update desk, like a boy dressing up in Daddy's clothes or a puppy straining at his leash. The webisodes show that he hasn't lost that bouncy quality -- he often speaks so breathlessly it's difficult to understand what he's saying. Can he settle down long enough to build a rapport with guests? Can he ad-lib?

There is a good deal of skepticism about Fallon; the Conan/Jon Stewart demographic, important to anyone who wants to succeed in the 12:30 a.m. timeslot, has been mostly dismissive, and Fallon has significant competition in the form of Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Kimmel. But to his credit, he seems to be aware of his image and is working hard at changing minds. O'Brien got a long time to prove himself, and Fallon should likewise have the luxury of a lengthy trial-and-error period.

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