“Daily Show” returns, finding laughs amid agony

“The Daily Show” is daily again, and it’s quite funny.
Well … as close to funny as we can expect for now. “My big week as guest host and I get Israel/Palestine,” said Michael Kosta (shown here doing stand-up), hosting this week’s shows — the first ones since writers went on strike May 2.
The war is not a funny subject … or one he understands. “What do I know about the Middle East? I’m from the Middle West.”
He grew up in Ann Arbor, where he returned to be a University of Michigan assistant tennis coach, before moving into comedy. This is not ideal preparation for international analysis.
Fortunately, he had someone to take care of that in the interview part of the show. Ian Bremmer talked passionately about the Middle East and also urged people to avoid social media. “It’ll make them angrier and more hateful than anything they would experience in real life.”
Kosta did admit to studying up on the region. (“I spent the weekend reading two lengthy Wikipedia articles.”) He emerged with the feeling that – like so many things – it can all be blamed on the British.
Then he was able to jump to other subjects, from the Rite-Aid bankruptcy – “apparently teaching us it’s a bad business model to have one employee for six stores” – and the Taylor Swift movie.
Desi Lydic did interview Swift fans, including one who said it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment … and she would be going again the next day.
Also, Jordan Klepper returned to one of his specialties – interviewing Trump supporters outside a rally. One man explained to him that the Jan. 6 rioters were from Antifa, ISIS and Black Lives Matter.
The half-hour zipped by quickly. Kosta is no Jon Stewart (or Trevor Noah or Samantha Bee or John Olivr or …), but he’s likable and clever. He’ll continue through Thursday (11 p.m., Comedy Central), with others following until a permanent host is chosen, early next year.
For now, the show is propelled by good work from its writers (back after a five-month strike) and correspondents. They have a lot of ground to clever.
At the Trump rally, Klepper pointed out that the photo Donald Trump uses for his “Never Surrender” slogan is a mug shot – taken after he surrendered to authorities.
It’s a good point … but one that two other people made two weeks ago, when the other latenight shows returned. “The Daily Show,” has lots of catching-up to do. In the five months of the writers’ strike, the world had to leave many things unmocked, unribbed and unsatirized. There’s work to be done, late at night.