THE DAILY SHOW HAS LOST IT

The original point of the show was to be a funny show on a comedy network. For a long while, all was well. But gradually, the show writers lost the ability to distinguish satire (that they were doing) from actual politics (with which it has nothing to do).

Jon Stewart spent a lot of his airtime making fun of things that were not political; he also reminded his audience from time to time that "we don't do any actual journalism; don't use us as a source of information". The new South African guy from South Africa, South African Trevor Noah, doesn't waste time with such disclaimers. He's replaced the space between the unamusing sketches with the usual self-flagellation and victimisation (did you know he had it rough in South Africa during his youth? Bet you didn't know that.)

That is one of the main problems with many of these satirical shows: they are so unfunny that it becomes very easy to forget that they are actually nothing but comedy. If you could get a regular laguh out of watching an episode, you'd have a better chance of remembering later on that what you saw was just a joke show on Comedy Central. Stewart hid behind the "I'm just a comedian" line all his career, but at least he had the decency of actually being a good one. Now what we have on air is pontificating, holier-than-thou smartasses that don't even try to make a joke. Being as funny as a real news show is a great way to get confused with real news.

I'd pay a fair sum to see the unedited versions of some of the interviews they have done the past couple years. I bet it would give off a completely different vibe. They tried to ambush Milo Yiannopoulos with this tactic and he acceted to be interviewed on the condition that his own staff could also record the whole thing and then make their own edited version. The Daily Show crew ran away immediately. That tells you a lot.