So far, Fallon's a personable cog

Jimmy Fallon has nothing to sweat about.

The latest host of NBC's "Late Night" may have begun his new gig last week looking not unlike the anchor wannabe Albert Brooks played in "Broadcast News," but we know - don't we? - that he's not going anywhere.

NBC doesn't make late-night mistakes. And when it does, it rides them out until they stop being mistakes.

Fallon, whose first reviews almost had to be better than his predecessor received in 1993, is being measured against a man many consider a comic genius.

That Conan O'Brien is both that predecessor and genius is as much a testament to NBC's patience as it is to O'Brien's on-the-job training as a comic and performer, which took quite a while.

Fallon, who's had more time in front of the camera than the former "Simpsons" writer began with, had mastered his sweat glands - and maybe cut back on the caffeine - by the middle of his first week.

Which left us with a well-scrubbed 34-year-old, dressed as he might be for his own funeral, putting on the kind of late-night show he'd reportedly dreamed of hosting since he was a child.

Late night's changed a bit since then - has anyone at NBC seen ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" or loosey-goosey Craig Ferguson's take on CBS' "Late Late Show"? - but you wouldn't know it from Fallon, whose Tweeting and Webcasts can't hide that he's a cog in an old-fashioned machine.

Happily, he's a personable cog.

Yes, the monologues are lame. As are most of the audience interactions. And as has been widely noted, the show's best moments so far have been guest-driven. Singer Justin Timberlake and actress Tina Fey were so good you just wish they had time to be on every night.

But give Fallon credit for having engendered enough good will to take some guests a step or two out of their comfort zones.

OK, maybe it's not a good thing to see actor Robert De Niro in a skit that wouldn't - one hopes - have made it as far as rehearsal on "Saturday Night Live." But Jon Bon Jovi agreeing to sing karaoke with a fan, and tennis great Serena Williams playing beer pong, at least got them out of the chairs.

Fallon might have had to host real estate mogul Donald Trump no matter what, but he showed an almost-embarrassing command of the ins and outs of his "Celebrity Apprentice" on NBC during a chat in which he did everything short of licking the Donald's face.

Fallon, like O'Brien before him, was anointed by executive producer Lorne Michaels, who worked with both men on "SNL."

CBS, by contrast, conducted on-air auditions to find Ferguson, who's proven that what's in the host's head counts.

Too bad no one at NBC yet completely trusts what might be in Fallon's head. *