Megyn Kelly didn't get much out of Vladimir Putin, but she did get the interview that was screaming to be done.
And you have to admit she did ask tough questions after hearing her quiz him on whether he had some kind of "damaging" evidence on President Donald Trump and how he responds to allegations that he kills unfriendly journalists.
With the non-stop flood of reports about ties between Trump and the Russians and mounting evidence that Team Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential election, basic journalism demands someone try to find out what Putin has to say. Even if it's a no comment or a pack of lies, we needed someone to try and get that response.
And Kelly was the American journalist who got it for the premiere of NBC's "Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly" newsmagazine.
While the morning-after reviews are all going to focus on what she did or didn't get from Putin, I think the real news here is that NBC might finally have a winning newsmagazine. It is too early to tell after just one hour, but "Sunday Night" is sharply focused in content and storytelling on women at a time of cultural change in terms of gender and power.
It tells stories about women and it is clearly speaking first and foremost to them from Kelly to the correspondents. In terms of its orientation, it's on the right side of history _ or, at least, the moment.
There is no doubt that the Putin interview and intense promotion for it was part hype. It felt like it was over before it got going at less than 15 minutes.
Putin denied virtually everything. No, he didn't know retired General Michael Flynn even though there are pictures of the two sitting together and Flynn has now been forced out of two administrations as a result of his alleged ties to Russia.
No, he had no idea whether or not Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser, tried to establish a "back channel" of communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
And, no, the Russian government did not have any role in trying to influence the U.S. presidential election.
What did anyone expect from this one-time K.G.B. chief and master of propaganda?
But unlike her nice-nice interview with Trump during a prime-time special for Fox during the election, here she pushed Putin until he got testy.
"Why do you feel you have the rights to ask us these kinds of questions?" he demanded in response to her asking him about allegations of him running a repressive regime that jails dissidents and kills journalists.
Seeing that flicker of anger spoke volumes about what kind of regime he ran and the contempt he has for those who would question him.
That's not stop the presses stuff. But the enterprise it took to get the sit-down interview is impressive. And what I saw during the rest of the hour was intriguing enough to make me want to come back for more in coming weeks before making a definitive call on "Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly."
