Back in London...

...And seriously jet-lagged! I hope this isn't going to be a repeat of the last time I came here from Houston- one week of compulsively waking up at 3.36 am and watching old episodes of Spin City on my laptop. (Michael J. Fox cures homesickness. It's a tried and tested trueism.)

Speaking of truthiness, I used my wide-eyed state of awakeness to see the new episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, which have joined the ranks of other late night shows coming back on air despite the WGA strike. I, like most fans of these shows, have mixed feelings about them coming back. On the one hand, it's awful to think of the beginning of election year going uncovered by John and Stephen. But then... support the writers! Down with big business screwing the workers! If you're a typical viewer of this show, a left-wing bleeding-heart tree-hugger who spends December 25th at "Osama's homo-abortion-pot-and-commie-jizzporium", then you will obviously feel uncomfortable about the fact that your favourite political pundits are not making a very good statement by coming back on air.

Also, the fact that you've downloaded the shows off iTunes gives you other things to think about in your jet-lagged state.
1. By paying to download these shows, you're supporting the AMPTP, and the writers get nothing.
2. But then, for these particular shows, there were no writers involved! So it's not like they should get paid in this case.

My solution- Download them for free. That way you're sending a symbolic screw-thee message to the producers, and you get your John and Stephen fix, and nobody gets paid, and everyone's happy.

Ok, well you're happy.

The shows were interesting. I thought Stephen was cleverer about the whole thing by relying more on old clips, and his opening teaser (with nothing to say) and 'The Word' segment (with no word), and the sudden blankness of the magic box that reads his mind and transcribes his thoughts (the teleprompter) was hilarious. The fact that one of his interview guests was an LSE alumnus made me happy inside. I liked that Jon paid more attention to the strike itself, and that he acknowledged that this show without the writers was not 'The Daily Show', but he seemed a bit uncomfortable. Probably because he doesn't really have a convenient right-wing blowhard characterisation like Stephen to hide behind, and I think he overcompensated with the extra-long interview segment about the strike. And he just seemed to ramble at times.

I did however, think his comparison of the WGA strike to 9/11 was awesome. Not because the joke itself worked (it didn't), but because the audience had no fucking clue how to react! Hee!

Links:
Variety live-blogged the return of the Daily Show.
Fans in support of the strike discuss the episodes.


Well it's past 5 am and I'm still not in the least bit sleepy. So now I can either-
1. unpack
2. work on my essays
3. watch The Simpsons.

And if you know me at all (or have at least read the title of this blog), I think you'll know what I'm going to do. Ciao, bella.