Stephen Colbert’s live election night show on Showtime didn’t earn many good reviews. It was awkward and awful.

The “Late Night” host explained in a recent interview the quality of the show was affected by the fact that he and his team prepped for everything … except a Donald Trump upset on election night.

“We have two-and-a-half shows’ worth of material that you’ll probably never see.”

At a Nov. 19 fundraiser at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Colbert spoke bluntly with fellow liberal late night host John Oliver about his surprise at the tide turning in Trump’s direction in front of the media’s eyes.

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“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said, adding that the audience was “openly sobbing.” What really ruined the broadcast, he said, was that he and his team had to scrap most of their planned material because they simply hadn’t foreseen that Trump would win.

“We have two-and-a-half shows’ worth of material that you’ll probably never see,” he said. “We had all these made-up commercials, but none of them were appropriate once we went on the air.”

Others like Colbert are clearly shaken by their miscalculations.

Colbert revealed he was as sold on a Hillary Clinton win as the rest of the press. “We had guests and pre-taped pieces for one of three eventualities: Hillary Clinton wins and we know; Hillary Clinton wins and we don’t know, because it’s not called until the show’s over; or Donald Trump wins and we don’t know, because he has such a narrow path to victory.”

Colbert revealed Trump’s win in real time forced him and his team to do a lot of their material off the cuff, as they worked through the shock of an outcome they did not expect. Colbert and Oliver turned their attention fully toward the Trump conversation after sharing in banter about their days working for “The Daily Show.”

Oliver seemed more morose about the results of the election. “The danger of saying, ‘Just live your lives, the sun still comes out tomorrow’ is that it’s true for some people, and it’s very easy to forget that it’s not true for others. Not everyone is going to be OK — and it’s incumbent upon everyone to remember that. You have to keep remembering that this is an abnormal version of what we’ve been through before.”

To his credit, Colbert seemed to have learned some lessons from his election coverage. Instead of pushing doom and gloom, the TV host encouraged people to get involved in local politics if they were displeased with the way things were going. He also had positive words for the way Vice President-Elect Mike Pence handled what happened at “Hamilton” on Friday night.

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“I like that he stayed and listened,” said Colbert. “He actually stayed in the doorway and listened and they thanked him for staying to hear it.”

Oliver chimed in: “He stayed in the doorway. That feels like the Mike Pence version of listening.”

Related: Mike Pence Harassed at ‘Hamilton’

The one-on-one conversation between Colbert and Oliver shows the mourning stage the press and talking heads are in after Trump’s victory. The press regularly favored Clinton and relied on inaccurate polls to wave off Trump and most of his supporters.

Colbert’s own experience with seeing his predictions and preparations come crumbling down are evidence of that. Some like Oliver will simply double-down on their hatred of Trump and will dismiss his supporters, despite there being far, far more of them than the press ever predicted.

Others like Colbert are clearly shaken by their miscalculations and will perhaps work to take steps towards something better — which is good news for everyone.

When LifeZette Editor-in-Chief Laura Ingraham stood on stage at the Republican National Convention and pointed to the press, saying, “Do your job,” it wasn’t a message any of them likely understood until results began rolling in on election night. Do Colbert’s words and attitude signify a small change in coverage and a sign of things to come in the larger media? We shall see.