Jon Stewart's return to 'The Daily Show' felt familiar to those who missed him while he was away

No, Jon Stewart really wasn't sitting at his desk at Comedy Central for the last nine years, waiting for someone to turn the lights back on.

Yet it almost felt that way during Stewart's return to “The Daily Show” Monday night. His signature moves — blunt satire, facial grimaces, incisive use of video and some occasional lectures — were all intact. Public figures are served notice that the media's sharpest bull detector is back on the job.

Stewart has said that the lack of a comedic outlet for his observations as the presidential campaign unfolded largely drove his decision to reprise his most memorable role, one night a week through the election. The much-diminished Comedy Central, unable to find a successor to Trevor Noah as host, happily welcomed him back.

Questions about the future of late-night TV, which is rapidly shedding viewers and losing influence, won't be answered in one night. Neither will that night prove Stewart can regain the position of prominence he stepped away from in August 2015.

But it was a promising start.

“Are you disappointed yet?” Stewart said after one sophomoric joke, about naming “The Daily Show” election coverage, “Indecision 2024: Electile Dysfunction.”

HE DOVE DIRECTLY INTO THE NEWS OF THE DAY

Stewart seemed to take a page from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow when she turned a daily hosting role into a weekly one. Both resisted trying to do too much, to cram a week's — or in Stewart's case, nine years — worth of material into one show. He moved swiftly into the news, and up-to-date doings of President Joe Biden and his Republican rival.

In Biden's case, it meant directly addressing questions about his age and fitness for office, which the president's supporters surely want to avoid. He examined