Things have changed since Jon Stewart bid farewell to the late night landscape six years ago. The former Daily Show host comes to terms with a few of the aesthetic differences in a teaser for his long-awaited return to television, The Problem With Jon Stewart. “What the hell happened to my face?” Stewart asks himself while getting ready in front of a mirror backstage. “Why would I go back to a visual medium?”
Stewart will officially be back on September 30, when his new current affair series hits AppleTV+. The one-hour series will drop new episodes every other week, diving into a single issue within each installment. The Problem has been described as a “discussion” between Stewart and those most involved in that week’s query about “tangible steps that can lead to a solutionary path forward.” An accompanying podcast will be released each week, featuring Problem staff members with additional interviews and commentary.
Stewart and co. have managed to keep The Problem largely cloaked in secrecy. After confirming a fall premiere date back in April, the show shared its first footage—titled “The Problem With Dicks in Space.” The series spoofed the billionaire space race involving Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk with the help of comedians Tracy Morgan, Ricky Gervais, Adam Pally, and Jason Alexander.
The Problem has announced a few key hires, including CBS Evening News alum Brinda Adhikari as its showrunner and executive producer, The Opposition With Jordan Klepper’s Chelsea Devantez as head writer, and Lorrie Baranek of The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore as supervising producer. Stewart also serves as an EP alongside his longtime manager James Dixon, and Richard Plepler.
Stewart departed his Emmy-winning Daily Show in 2015, after 16 years spent lampooning American politics. Since then, he’s sporadically appeared on The Late Show alongside Stephen Colbert and mentored his Daily Show successor, Trevor Noah. Instead of returning to TV with a previously planned HBO political animated series, Stewart has recently given an impassioned congressional testimony about healthcare for 9/11 first responders and helmed last year’s Steve Carell comedy Irresistible.
While the world at large awaits The Problem with Jon Stewart, a select few have already seen segments from the show. Deadline reports that the series began taping in front of a fully vaccinated, live New York audience in July.
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