By the time The Amber Ruffin Show made its NBC debut in February, it was a fully formed show

Vulture

"Even from the first episodes on Peacock, Ruffin’s host persona was already in place, in all its iterations: her sweet, slightly sly baseline; the heightened camp of her goofiest sketches; the pivot toward directness and exasperation in her political segments," says Kathryn VanArendonk. "She delights in toggling between the broad and the specific. The streaming service has also been a relatively low-profile place for The Amber Ruffin Show to incubate over the past several months, and Ruffin’s captivating, confident ownership of its tone is surely, at least in part, due to her years writing for Meyers. By the time a few episodes of Amber Ruffin appeared on NBC, it was a fully formed show, avoiding the growing pains of many new late-night series." VanArendonk adds: "Hosts like Stephen Colbert or Conan O’Brien tend to play big, broad gags with an undercurrent of knowingness, with line readings and glances at the camera that say, Isn’t this funny?! But Ruffin is in it, from her aghast expression to the distinct change in her intonation and diction that signals that this is a new mode — a character that feels just as authentically Ruffin as when she’s doing Monologue Host or Comedic Song Host or Chitchatting With Her Sidekick Host."