That's it? That's what all the fuss was about?

If ever a television show fell short of expectations, NBC's "The Jay Leno Show" is it. But I'm not sure why.

Rather, I know why the show is what it is, but I don't know why anyone expected more. Let's face it, despite all of NBC's promotion, all the network's denials to the contrary, all of Leno's appearances on magazine covers, "The Jay Leno Show" soon revealed itself as a slightly modified revamp of "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." Key differences? "Leno" airs 95 minutes earlier, and he now conducts interviews without a desk. ("Leno" airs at 10 weeknights on KNSD/Cable 7. I’ll also review NBC’s “Community” and the CW’s “The Beautiful Life” in this column.)

The very existence of Leno's new show is a classic case of necessity giving birth to invention. NBC had already committed itself to handing off "Tonight" to Conan O'Brien, but didn't want to lose Leno to a competitor. The network has also had no luck lately creating a decent drama to fill its 10 p.m. time slot. So it declared a new age of innovation in television programming and sublet the 10 p.m. hour - five nights a week - to Leno.

If there's any innovation going on here, it's in NBC's modest ambitions. The network has given up on winning, or even scoring respectable ratings, in the 10 p.m. hour with scripted dramas. With "Leno," NBC thinks it can win financial profits with a low-budget show which, it hopes, will never be last in the ratings. It's designed and fated to be certain viewers' default second choice, watched on there's-nothing-else-on nights, when your favorite 10 o'clock drama either isn't available or is a rerun. Living room conversations, NBC hopes, will go like this: "'CSI' (or 'Private Practice' or 'Numb3rs') isn't on tonight, so we'll watch 'Leno.'"

How that plan will work out remains to be seen. Any talk show, day or night, has to be judged over the long haul. To cite the industry's favorite cliche, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

But Leno is not exactly an unknown quantity. Nor, it soon became apparent, is his show. Like him, it's safe and unsurprising. On the first night, it felt like we’d seen it before.

A comedy takeoff on the syndicated "Cheaters" fell flat because hardly anybody watches "Cheaters." Leno said that over the summer he'd been scouring the nation's comedy clubs looking for fresh talent, then introduced a long, labored sketch by Dan Finnerty, and I wondered if this was the best he could find.

He can, however, be a surprising interviewer. He had already booked Kanye West for a musical number with Rihanna and Jay-Z, when West Sunday night made headlines by interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV "Video Music Awards." West had already apologized for his boorish behavior, and Leno caught him in a contrite mood. What, Leno asked, would West's late mother have thought? West answered with a prolonged, embarrassed, miserable silence that spoke volumes. It was a moment to remember.

There may be more of those to come, but Leno can't count on many more gifts than the one he received from West.

His first guest, Jerry Seinfeld, wore a black tie and tux for the occasion, and sparkled, as he usually does. And a surprise appearance via satellite by Oprah Winfrey also boosted the show. But Leno can't rely on many more all-star nights like his first. Night after night, the show is on his shoulders to carry.

As Johnny Carson once observed, these shows are about the guy behind the desk. Even if there is no desk.

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“Community,” NBC’s new sitcom starting Thursday, brings Chevy Chase back to TV and leads to the inevitable question: Why?

Joel McHale stars as Jeff Winger, a lawyer who has returned to Greendale Community College after being disbarred because his degree was falsified. A fast talker, he sets up a phoney Spanish study group as a means of getting to know the beautiful Britta (Gillian Jacobs). (“Community” premieres as part of NBC’s comedy lineup at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, also on KNSD/Cable 7.)

Other students join up uninvited, and pretty soon you’ve got a half-dozen college-level sweathogs trading one-liners around the table. Chase, obviously uncomfortable among actors so much younger than himself, no doubt dreaming of the bygone days when he was the king of “Saturday Night Live,” plays a businessman who has gone back to school, though he seems to think he already knows it all.

“Community” offers smirks aplenty, but the laughs are mighty few.

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“The Beautiful Life,” from the CW, isn’t so much a dramatic series as a solution to a programming problem. (It airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, on XETV/Channel 6.)

What would be the perfect drama that could follow “America’s Next Top Model”? Particularly when critics are forever carping that all the actors on your network look like models? Do you have to choose between a modeling reality show and a drama? No! Let’s create a drama that’s about models!

Then all the actors would have to look like models. Who could complain about that? Brilliant!

“The Beautiful Life,” about a stable of New York fashion models and a lovely Iowa farm boy discovered while lunching in Manhattan, perpetuates the fantasy, the essential element of the modeling shows, of getting discovered and becoming rich and famous without work.

Every actor is more beautiful than the last, but all in that too-perfect, vapid, preening, empty, instantly forgettable sort of beauty typical of daytime soap stars and department store mannequins.

Maybe they are department store mannequins. They do seem to roll off a secret, demonic CW assembly line like so many robotic androids.