From The Review
May 2, 2024
NADYA ELLERHORST
Executive Editor
I must thank Firefox Pocket for notifying me that a dream from my early college days has finally come true: A suggested Hollywood Reporter article bore the news that Conan O’Brien has made a travel show.
I’ve personally never watched full-length episodes from O’Brien’s talk show era. Yet at the height of the pandemic, “Conan Without Borders,” an Emmy-winning series aligned with O’Brien’s time with television network TBS (he’s since moved on to greener podcast pastures via Team Coco), was my literal escape. Locked in my condo, I turned to O’Brien for entertainment and enlightenment as he galavanted around the world, usually leaving a heady mix of chaos and joy in his wake and teaching his viewers a thing or two about a given country in the process.
I’ve often found that celebrity-led travel programs can either be too serious or too funny, with hosts either focusing exclusively on the dark parts of a nation’s history or making (sometimes uncalled-for) jokes a mile a minute. In “Conan Without Borders,” O’Brien managed to strike a balance that left me both laughing and thinking.
Up until recently, I’ve been rewatching “Conan Without Borders” when I need a chuckle (see “Jordan Schlansky Lectures Conan About Coffee in Naples” and maybe you’ll understand). When I learned that O’Brien was joining forces with Max to finally take this fabled, segment-based travel series and run with it, my interest was nothing short of piqued.
At long last: O’Brien traveling, sans the laugh track. And as soon as I heard the Werner Herzog voiceover at the start of the season’s first episode, I knew I was in for a zany treat.
O’Brien sometimes hosts fans on his podcast, and in “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” he links up with Conan enthusiasts worldwide with whom he’s chatted before. Season one features O’Brien exploring various locales in Norway, Argentina, Thailand and Ireland.
I immediately found myself taken aback that it’s not explicitly a “travel show,” at least in the way most audiences might expect. The first part of each episode features O’Brien surprising a fan at their homes, meeting their families and sometimes rummaging through their personal belongings. From that point, O’Brien visits a few sites and meets with others across the respective country. Suffice to say, while his talk show days may have ended, his distinct unhinged-ness has not. As Herzog aptly puts it in the intro: “This is madness. This is lunacy. This is chaos.”
Show highlights for me include O’Brien visiting the Damnoen River floating market in Bangkok and reuniting with Schlansky to enjoy various meats in Buenos Aires (to my delight, the tension between the two doesn’t seem to have diminished, either). I also appreciated the show’s focus on people-to-people interactions; aside from fans and locals, O’Brien engages in conversations with folks on the street.
This specific aspect was a refreshing angle – take it from a travel show enthusiast. Travel shows often run the risk of exclusively honing in on a country’s landmarks or attractions more so than its people. Sometimes they focus too heavily on the host’s perspective, or the focal point is how to have the best, “budget-friendly” vacation in a given spot.
In “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” the people aren’t merely B-roll. O’Brien probably hangs out more than he goes sightseeing. He doesn’t try to distance himself from anyone. He throws himself – albeit clownishly at times – into the heart of it all.
And yes, some of it’s just ridiculous, ludicrous and maybe even a tad cringe. While O’Brien’s humor is (usually) self-deprecating, it occasionally falls flat. Channeling the comedic energy that has defined much of his career, O’Brien sometimes commits to the bit a smidge too much, such as when he adopts the personas of a ruthless viking, a tormented lighthouse keeper or a singing gaucho. I feel that the show’s producers could have cut scenes like these shorter to make way for even more travel-related escapades. I enjoyed watching the connections O’Brien made and the places he visited, and I was sometimes left wanting more.
However, one thing I appreciate about “Conan O’Brien Must Go” is its subtle satirization of traditional travel shows, from the dramatic Herzog voiceover that prefaces each episode to the Norway episode’s intentional over-usage of stunning drone footage. Maybe travel doesn’t need to be as hallowed as other shows usually make it out to be, and “Conan O’Brien Must Go” seems to acknowledge that.
There’s some room for improvement, but the first season of “Conan O’Brien Must Go” is the start of something poised to shake up the travel TV universe, and I welcome it. The sheer, uninhibited havoc O’Brien stirs will never be lost in translation, nor will the connections he somehow manages to forge in every corner of the world. I hope that O’Brien will take these two hallmarks of his forward and create even more opportunities for us to get to know the world – and, more importantly, its people – even better.
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