The swooping opening credits still said “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” the announcer said it too. And in the computer crawl that is part of the set, Jon Stewart’s name was on there too.
Stewart’s impression is all over the essential topical comedy show that can hardly be recalled from its earlier, pre-Jon days. So when he announced he was taking the summer off to direct a movie, it would seem odd.
Stewart’s missed a few days behind the desk before. Seems like I recall Steve Carell or Stephen Colbert filling in on sick days, and maybe John Oliver too.
Still the British correspondent played up how odd it was Monday when the Stewart show was announced and he appeared at the desk.
“Welcome to ‘The Daily Show.’ I’m John Oliver. Let’s just acknowledge for a moment that this is weird. This looks weird. It feels weird. It sounds weird and I know what my voice sounds like.”
Much of his initial episode, in fact, returned to the fact of his substitution. It was even how they framed the big story of the night. Stewart had written an encouraging note saying he’d be great, don’t worry, because big stories never break in the summer. Then came the torrent about the wide-scale montoring of cell phone calls, email and social media by the government, monitoring “more information than George Orwell wet his bed over.”
“I bet the Amish are feeling pretty smug right now,” Oliver said. “Or they would if they realized this story was going on.”
He cut to Jason Jones and Samantha Bee who could barely hide their outrage — that Oliver had taken over the subbing spot instead of them.
Even when the guest came out, Seth Rogen, the conversation turned to who was interviewing him.
Eventually, things will settle down, we will accept Oliver’s even and not-terrible hosting, realize that the great (and great big) writing staff is still in place and churning out good stuff and that we, too, will survive the changing of the desk, if not the domestic spying fallout.