Stewart seemed particularly at sea without his writers. During his half-hour show, he took jabs at both the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Writers Guild -- the two entities at odds in the strike. True, his beef was mainly with the producers. Stewart, after all, is a Writers Guild member. It's not like he's backing the man. He made a couple of lame jokes about how the fact that writers weren't paid for online content (a sticking point of the negotiations) was somehow related to how close Internet viewers sit to the screen. Um, Ok. However, he did have a couple of amusing moments, as when he announced that, as long as the strike persisted, his show would be called not "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" but merely "A Daily Show, With Jon Stewart." He also made the rather depressing point that, the last time late night shows were off for a long period of time was following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. During that time, he said, these shows were off for only a few weeks.
But his funniest line occurred during a riff on those "Speechless" ads certain actors are doing to show support for the WGA. One such actor? Notorious activist Sean Penn. "Oh, my God. You got Sean Penn to advocate your cause!" Stewart snarked. "You must have...A CAUSE!"
He also spoke to labor professor Ronald Seeber, and professed his strong desire to make an independent deal with striking writers, a la David Letterman, who returned to the air with his writers last week.
Colbert seemed a bit more relaxed during his show, and returned with ease to his on-air persona of a right-wing blowhard. He expressed dismay that his Teleprompter didn't seem to have any words in it. When told it was because of the writers strike, he acted confused. "My understanding is that this little box reads my thoughts and lays them up on the screen for me to read to the audience!"
Bits like that were mostly a springboard for Colbert to show clips from pre-strike, scripted shows, including a clever montage of moments in which he made fun of unions. He, too, had guests -- writers Andrew Sullivan and Richard B. Freeman.
All in all, it was interesting TV. Not nearly at the level of what this guys usually do, but certainly better than reruns.