The Stewart-Oliver Transition

[Mark Jeffries]

As Jon Stewart temporarily leaves "TDS" to try out being a film director, here's how John Oliver assumed the host position last night--right at the Moment of Zen:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-june-6-2013/moment-of-zen---john-oliver-takes-over

[PGage]

On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 12:59 PM, Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:

As Jon Stewart temporarily leaves "TDS" to try out being a film director, here's how John Oliver assumed the host position last night--right at the Moment of Zen:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-june-6-2013/moment-of-zen---john-oliver-takes-over

Salon takes some real parting shots at Stewart: 

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/07/do_we_need_a_break_from_jon_stewart_too/

I would say about 67% of this is unfounded, and smacks of the kind of lazy television criticism we so often see these days, in which a critic tries to get attention by attacking whatever show is popular. Stewart's show has been been understood as primarily satirizing the media at least since the Bush Administration, so this is really nothing new. My own politics make me sympathetic to the critique that Stewart too often indulges in false equivalency, but again, he has been doing that for a long time. And the last few months have been a satirical puzzle, as the parade of fake and overheated "scandals" touted by the conservative talking points of the week have not been serious enough to justify becoming the lens through which the executive branch is portrayed, but there has been enough reality to at least some level of concern and inquiry that it would not really due to do nothing but lambast Fox News for bringing it up. In the Williams interview Stewart did hint that if he was going to be around over the next few weeks he might focus in on Holder's criminalization of journalism, which I think is the right instinct.

The 33% that is justified is I think a product of two things: 1) Stewart has for a while now seemed to be less energized about his job, enough that I have been wondering since before the election if he really still had the fire in the belly to keep doing it much longer; and 2) as he mentioned last night, Stewart has been spending a lot of time in recent months working on his film project, with a lot of staff doing things that he usually does. From the two or three accounts I have read of how TDS typically works, Stewart is something of a taskmaster, and while he may not be a micro-manager exactly, he does seem to engage in rigorous quality control over every aspect of the show. It seems likely that he has not been doing that as much the last 8 weeks or so.

Stewart said several time this week that he would miss the show (the staff, and the audience) more than the show would miss him. I am not sure if that is true. I love John Oliver (more than apparently the Salon article author does), and I expect him to do a good job, but I wonder how much Stewart really will miss the grind of doing the show. I suspect when he returns it will be either to a highly recharged battery and increased focus on the possibilities of his job, or an announcement sometime in the following 6 months that he will be leaving the show at some fixed point in the future.

 

[Joe Hass]

That jives with my take on the article: that the author is complaining about Stewart's style rather than the substance of the program (which goes far beyond whether Stewart does a bad Jersey accent or not.

I tend to not watch Stewart unless someone/thing brings it to my attention due of time constraints. I'll be actively watching the Oliver episodes, primarily because I'm a huge fan of his, and I have a feeling of tempered optimism towards what he'll bring to the program.

[Adam Bowie]

Yes Stewart uses his voices a bit, but I still find The Daily Show an essential watch, and it gets a permanent spot in my DVR's schedule. (To put this in perspective, aside from Stewart, the only late night US talkshow that gets broadcast over here is a cutdown version of Kimmel on CNBC. Well there's Chelsea Lately too on E! But that's it).

But I too am looking forward to seeing what Oliver brings to it. 

And it's not as though there isn't a really big juicy subject to get stuck into either. I was kind of disappointed that Stewart left it alone on Thursday's show. But perhaps everything was a bit too new news at that point.

Adam

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[Mark Jeffries]

I had to check, since I thought More4 had dropped it, but "TDS" is now on in the UK on Comedy Central Extra--as it should be.  (Well, perhaps it should be on the main Comedy Central, but hey.)

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

[Adam Bowie]

Yes - it returned last July after something something like 18 months off. It airs at 11pm too. So essentially 19 hours after its East Coast airing. The only problem with it being on the "Extra" channel is that this isn't available in HD. But I'll take that over not having it (to be fair, you could always pay for an iTunes subscription). It's just a shame that Comedy Central don't pair it with the Colbert Report. But I suspect that even though both channels are called Comedy Central, they've probably got different ownership structures and therefore money might be changing hands. 

[M-D November]

According to the 'Pedia, CC UK is currently a joint venture between Paramount UK (so, effectively, one of the sides of Viacom) and BSkyB. So there's SOME common ownership between the mothership and the UK channel.