{"id":26731,"date":"2024-02-13T15:48:35","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T10:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/jon-stewart-beats-critics-to-the-punch-in-return-to-the-daily-show\/"},"modified":"2024-02-13T15:48:35","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T10:18:35","slug":"jon-stewart-beats-critics-to-the-punch-in-return-to-the-daily-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/jon-stewart-beats-critics-to-the-punch-in-return-to-the-daily-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Stewart beats critics to the punch in return to ‘The Daily Show’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The parallels were impossible to ignore, so\u00a0Jon Stewart\u00a0decided not to ignore them. <\/p>\n

Both major American political parties have been unable to find new candidates to lead their presidential tickets, leading to a rematch in the 2024 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And in a much lower-stakes effort to find a leader for a legacy institution, Comedy Central has yet to decide on a new course for \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d following the departure of Trevor Noah, despite months of public tryouts from guest hosts including Sarah Silverman, Roy Wood Jr., Desus Nice and more. <\/p>\n

So the network has brought back Stewart for a weekly appearance on Monday nights, starting with this week\u2019s season premiere.<\/p>\n

These similarities are lost on no one, least of all Stewart himself. <\/p>\n

Apart from an extended runtime and a quick appearance by former correspondent Jordan Klepper, there was little to announce Monday night’s episode as a major event or break from routine. From the monologue to the staged \u201cfield\u201d segment to the interview to the Moment of Zen, the run of show proceeded as usual \u2014\u00a0or rather, as it usually did until 2015, the last time Stewart occupied the chair. <\/p>\n

The primary feeling was not of triumphant return or even nostalgia, but d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. For long stretches, it was as if Stewart had never made an\u00a0abortive attempt\u00a0at an animated news show for HBO, nor made an Emmy-nominated series for Apple TV+ until the tech company\u00a0flinched at potential controversy. You could almost believe Stewart had stayed fixed in the seat where he still clearly feels comfortable, cuing up montages of news clips and grimacing at political gaffes.<\/p>\n

Until, that is, Stewart used himself as an example. <\/p>\n

For nearly 20 minutes, the comedian expounded on the absurdity of a rematch between two men who had\u00a0already\u00a0<\/em>been the oldest presidential candidates in American history. Then he turned to the camera. <\/p>\n

\u201cLook at me,\u201d he urged. \u201cLook what time hath wrought.\u201d Despite being decades younger than either Trump or Biden, Stewart could still recognize the obvious joke: politicians aren\u2019t the only ones who have problems passing the torch.<\/p>\n

Stewart also outsourced some of his self-deprecation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the same s— all over again!\u201d cried correspondent Dulc\u00e9 Sloan. \u201cWe need something besides the same show with an older, yet familiar face.\u201d (Dutifully playing along, Stewart asked: \u201cWe\u2019re talking about the election, right?\u201d).<\/p>\n

Klepper stopped by the studio to challenge his former boss\u2019 \u201cbrand of snark and both-sidesism,\u201d channeling some of the more substantive critiques of Stewart that emerged during his absence. The Apple show occasionally went viral for confrontational interviews, but where Bush-era Stewart was a soothing source of exasperated sanity, political comedy during the Trump years could feel like a futile shaking of a fist in the face of a cultural tsunami.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jokes at Stewart\u2019s expense helped to dispel the initial awkwardness, but they don\u2019t resolve the fundamental tension underlying everything from the election to Bob Iger\u2019s second stint at Disney to Stewart\u2019s own full-circle moment. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re at a crossroads where systems are stuck in a loop, running their own expired playbooks to increasingly diminished returns. \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d itself runs on a network with increasingly little original programming, owned by a conglomerate frantically searching for a new owner as its value grows progressively smaller. <\/p>\n

Bringing Stewart back is a momentary bright spot, but there\u2019s still another three days a week of episodes to fill. What are\u00a0those\u00a0<\/em>going to look like, and for how long until a longer-term solution comes along \u2014\u00a0if it ever does?<\/p>\n

Anyone who has living memories of the War on Terror is powerless to resist Stewart\u2019s particular blend of cynicism and moral righteousness. Yet the lack of pomp and circumstance around his return means that its meta aspects become the most meaningful. <\/p>\n

Stewart could mock Biden\u2019s fraying faculties or point out Trump\u2019s infinite shortcomings in his sleep. It\u2019s not the punchlines themselves that help demonstrate the snake-eating-its-tail absurdity of the current news cycle. It\u2019s the man delivering them, and how many times we\u2019ve seen him before.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] The parallels were impossible to ignore, so\u00a0Jon Stewart\u00a0decided not to ignore them. Both major American political parties have been unable to find new candidates to lead their presidential tickets, leading to a rematch in the 2024 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And in a much lower-stakes effort to find a leader for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26731"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}