The only moment anyone’s likely to remember from the colossal dud of The Jay Leno Show's opening night—which felt more like an off night of the old Tonight Show—was a moment where no joke was cracked, indeed where no word was spoken. (Because anytime words or jokes were part of the equation, you’d be better off forgetting it.)

A sullen, repentant Kanye West, delivered into Leno’s lap like a gift from the Neilsen gods 24 hours after his debacle at the VMAs, was rendered speechless when thrown an Oprah-esque question: “What do you think [your mother] would have said about this?” Awkward silence ensued as West rubbed his brow and scalp, until Leno quietly pressed: “Would she be disappointed in this? Would she give you a lecture?” Which prompted a mostly incoherent apology: “I’m ashamed that my hurt caused another person’s hurt.” This segment is going to get a lot of play in the hours and maybe even days to come, which is going to make The Jay Leno Show look a lot more interesting than its first night actually was.

Forget the early time period. This uninspired opening salvo felt so sleepy and tired it might as well have aired at midnight. In 1989. How hip is the new The Jay Leno Show? Think hip replacement. This was one of those nights when I got flop sweat all over my couch just from watching.

We really didn’t expect cutting-edge comedy from Jay Leno, did we? But we didn’t expect anything quite this flat, either. It was a telling moment when his opening-night guest, a tuxedoed and subdued Jerry Seinfeld, failed to bring a clip of Curb Your Enthusiasm with him. Because that might have actually made us laugh.

The show opened, indistinguishably from the old Tonight Show, with a monologue where quantity mattered more than quality. I counted maybe 16 jokes (a generous word for most of them), and zingers were far and few between. (Sample: car-collector Leno joking that during the “cash for clunkers” program, “I made five billion dollars!”)

Leno prefers to describe his not-so-new new show as a comedy, not variety, program. So what passed for comedy? A sketch based on Cheaters, with Jay catching innocuous bandleader Kevin Eubanks hanging with a Leno look-alike (in matching argyle sweaters). It laid an egg. Something much stinkier ensued as Dan Finnerty (The Hangover) went into the field for an endless bit titled “Everything Is Better With Music,” and proved it wrong by offering patrons of a car wash an “entertainment package” that most wisely refused. Pity poor mortified Meg, who accepted the offer and stood around with a stricken grin as Finnerty sang about whipping out his hose.

The sad part about all of this is, when such things bomb, you can’t turn to Letterman or Comedy Central or even Kimmel for relief, because they’re not on yet!! NBC has infected its prime-time schedule with its late-night mediocrity, and until real TV returns next week, we’re probably going to be stuck with artificially inflated numbers for this woeful experiment in cost-effective and creatively impaired counter-programming.

Can’t say I’m a fan of the desk-free set, either, where guests sit awkwardly on chairs next to the fidgety Leno. I bet that “innovation” doesn’t last.

Unfortunately, The Jay Leno Show is here to stay for the foreseeable future. And who knows? Maybe it will improve. (It could hardly get worse.) Maybe it will do well enough so that Jay Leno will get the last laugh after all.

After Monday night’s show, it’s hard to imagine anyone else even cracking a smile.