Jon Stewart makes a strong, familiar return on Apple TV+
Jon Stewart is back. And he has a “Problem” for you.
The Emmy-winning host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” left his regular television gig in 2015, and has been cropping up in the public eye occasionally since then. But now he’s back, at least on a biweekly basis, on Apple TV+ with “The Problem with Jon Stewart” (streaming every other Thursday, eee out of four), a series that devotes entire episodes to a single issue, or, as the title suggests, “Problem.”
The new series will instantly remind viewers of Stewart’s former correspondent John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” on HBO, with a smattering of Larry Wilmore’s canceled-too-soon “The Nightly
Show” on Comedy Central. (Former HBO chief Richard Plepler is an
executive producer.) The episodes open with candid, behind-the-scenes shots of Stewart in the writers’ room with his team, hashing out what the episode should focus on and why, often cracking jokes. After the show’s credits roll (which offer a few cheeky alternate titles for the series), we see a familiar sight: Stewart at a desk (or rather, an artistically crafted wooden table) with paper and pen, ready to address his live studio audience.
Just because “Problem” resembles much of what other comedians including Oliver, Seth Meyers and Samantha Bee are doing in the late-night talk show space doesn’t mean that it has nothing to add to the conversation. Stewart, 58, is a charismatic, convincing guy. He stands out as an advocate for the people whose stories he elevates on his platform, much like he has spent many years fighting on behalf of 9/11 first responders who have struggled to get medical care. Part news show, part comedy, part soap box, “Problem” is familiar but distinct, and a natural outlet for this version of Stewart.
Each episode’s single issue is rather broad in scope. The first investigates and highlights the health problems that affect veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who were exposed to “burn pits,” the term for landfills in which the military’s waste was burned near bases overseas. The Veterans Affairs department refuses to correlate the cancers and diseases many veterans have developed with the pits, but Stewart highlights the scientific evidence and interviews people who have been affected.
The biggest difference between “Problem” and “Daily Show” is that Stewart invites a panel of people who are directly affected by the issue he is highlighting. The premiere features veterans, their spouses and one military widow who are advocating for those affected by these horrible cancers. He also heads into the field, something one of his correspondents would have done back on Comedy Central. He travels to Washington, D.C., to interview Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis Mcdonough, pressing him on why the department hasn’t established a link between burn pits and disease that would allow these veterans to receive medical care through the VA.
It’s a lot for one episode to cover, as reflected in the 45-minute running time. Viewers used to the snappy 22- or 30minute pace of so many of these “comedy hybrid” shows, as Stewart calls them, might find the heavy issues, ingrained with tragedy, overwhelming. And after watching two episodes, it seems some interstitial comedy bits could be edited out, and the panelist interviews could be tightened to make sure Stewart’s message doesn’t get lost.
Stewart has been promoting the series by trying to manage expectations about just how funny it will be: not that hilarious. But there is more humor than his pre-show press might indicate, especially when Stewart is directly addressing the audience. He is still Jon Stewart, after all, and he knows how to turn a joke in a monologue without risking exploiting or offending his subjects. When he shifts to his role as interviewer, the jokes are fewer, and by the second episode, about democracy in danger in the U.S. and around the globe, he is more adept at keeping the panels serious while evoking some chortles.
Inevitably “Problem” will elicit some disappointed reactions from fans who are expecting Stewart to do exactly what he used to do on “Daily.” But that’s a risk anytime someone like Stewart, who is so intrinsically linked with one persona or TV series, tries something new. There are a lot of problems for Stewart to address in his new series, but his comeback is not one of them.