Start your weekend with Stephen Colbert and Neil DeGrasse Tyson getting deep

Neil DeGrasse Tyson flipped things around on Stephen Colbert and interviewed the late night host on The Late Show.

The late night talk show is pretty formulaic these days. The host has the monologue, a comedy bit, and then it’s A guest followed by B guest and the musical act. Say goodnight and do it all again tomorrow. So for that reason, you can’t fault Stephen Colbert for trying something new over at The Late Show.

All this week Colbert has been letting different guests sit behind the desk and interview him for a change. The highlight may have been the return of Jon Stewart. The two reminisced about The Daily Show and The Colbert Report before discussing the state of politics and Stewart’s life off television.

Kerry Washington, Jake Tapper, and Charlemagne the God were the other celebrities given a chance to ask Colbert some questions. But things got really interesting with astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson got to sit in The Late Show big chair.

Things immediately got pretty deep between Tyson and Colbert. It seems like this is the week for late night hosts get “real.” Conan O’Brien has done a bit of this both on his own podcast and on Dax Shepard’s podcast. The question of whether it is better to know or not know certainly isn’t one commonly covered in late night. There isn’t much room for it between questions like “how are your kids” and “tell us what your movie is all about.”

But Colbert and Tyson weren’t done at philosophy. They covered multiverses and supernovas before getting to Colbert’s favorite topic: the Lord of the Rings. Once you start Colbert down that path, there is usually no turning back. Tyson managed to avoid that by bringing up another one of Colbert’s favorites: Catholicism.

Again, this is the type of conversation that we don’t see anywhere on television never mind on late night. It shows that there are some layers to Colbert beyond the satirist and humorist. So as you kick off your weekend, maybe take a page from Colbert’s book. Switch things up, go deep on a topic you never have before. Or you could keep talking about Trump…