Conan O'Brien Returns To TV Monday

Conan O'Brien's new show debuts Monday night on TBS. Critics will no doubt be watching carefully to see how well he does. Will Conan get his sidetracked career back on track or not? When Conan O'Brien felt pressure at NBC due to terrible TONIGHT SHOW ratings, he simply quit the network in a very public battle in which he felt that he was never given a fair chance to build an audience. However, he held on to very few of the old viewer strength of Jay Leno's TONIGHT SHOW, so NBC wanted Leno back at 11:35 and wanted to push Conan off to after midnight, resulting in massive bad publicity for Conan, Leno and NBC.

Conan O'Brien did manage to get enough money from NBC to share some with many former members of his show, and many will be held intact for the new TBS show. However, bandleader Max Weinberg won't be back. He's moving on to other opportunities, which is a real shame because he's a natural deadpan comic.

Monday will be a big test for Conan. Will he pass or flunk out big time? Only time will tell....