It has been a long nine weeks!
The Daily Show and
The Colbert Report last ran new episodes on November 1 and the fans have been slowly dying ever since. Due to the excessive reruns, both shows have lost more than 50% of their audiences but tonight, those numbers will change. It will be interesting to see how both
Jon Stewart and
Stephen Colbert will handle returning to tv. We still expect political, smart humor and it's going to be a challenge considering neither one of them can write a single word. They'll have to improv the whole thing, which may work for Conan or Dave but will it work well for the Comedy Central duo? Here's how each show played out as
The Daily Show and
The Colbert Report return with new episodes.
Your Take
TheEditor said:
It was nice to have them back, and both did OK, but without the writers, it's a completely different show. ...
beccam97 said:
Despite what their current work situations demand, tonight's shows were a welcome relief to nine weeks of r...
First up: Stewart. Instead of sporting a beard in support of the Writer's Strike, he opted for a unibrow, which he equated to the AIDS ribbon. Not covering the presidential campaign must be killing Stewart slowly on the inside but now that he's back, he kicks things off with the Iowa caucus. Of course, he went off about the WGA strike, mixing in sarcasm and humor with his explanation of what's been happening the last nine weeks. Would we expect anything else? He also said that since his show was only off for a week in the aftermath of 9/11, he estimates that this strike is nine times worse than 9/11. Ouch.
Next up: Colbert. Stewart checks in with him before he throws it to him. Colbert is sporting a (fake) strike beard that looks like it belongs in the biblical times as he shreds a (fake) script. At the top of his show, he gets an extremely long ovation for his return. So long, in fact, that Colbert kicks back in a chair and reads the paper while waiting for it to subside. He, too, went on about the Iowa caucus, teasing the idea of running as Huckabee's vice president.
Both shows fared well without their writers. Stewart's guest was an expert on strikes from Cornell University while Colbert invited a journalist on to talk about why Obama may be the guy for us. They can get away with guests like that since that's a typical night for them as opposed to suffering through Conan and a very unfunny Bob Saget. Writers or not, I'm glad the two shows are back and Colbert had me laughing out loud. I've missed them so!
- Gina Scarpa, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of Comedy Central)
What did you think of Stewart and Colbert's return?