January 07, 2008 - Late-Night Comebacks, Take Two: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Return Tonight

It doesn't matter that much, at least not to me, that ABC is launching its Dancing with the Stars spinoff, Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann, tonight in prime time. What's a lot more interesting, this week no less than last week, is Talk War: Jay vs. Dave, and Everybody Else.

Tonight at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart returns, followed at 11:30 ET by Stephen Colbert in The Colbert Report.

Both shows are coming back without their writing staffs, which seems an especially daunting task. That's especially true in Stewart's case, where so much of the show's first-half humor is so tightly structured and dependent upon writing to timely footage and bantering with comic correspondents. But both Stewart and Colbert are first-rate, quick-thinking comedic thinkers, and their perspectives have been sorely missed.

Even their joint statement, issued about their impending return, was amusingly nuanced.

"We would like to return to work with our writers," they said in one voice, disseminated by Comedy Central last week. "If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."

I can't wait, though, for their respective takes on last week's Iowa caucus victories by Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat Barack Obama. And on last Saturday's double-feature ABC debate in New Hampshire, which featured the Republican candidates, then the Democrats - and in between, had Charles Gibson forcing the political opposites to share the stage for one unprecedented show of bipartisan civility.

It was a great TV moment, the icing between a two-layer cake that was itself pretty palatable, so far as televised debates go. With Saturday's debates as fodder, and the New Hampshire primary literally a day away, Colbert and Stewart, even without writing staffs, should find no lack of inspiration.

But don't forget about the other guys in the late-night talk game, whose moves and fortunes continue to shift daily, and unexpected features can pop up anywhere. Last Friday, in an inspired "look, ma, no writers" time-filler on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien, O'Brien donned a garish jacket, picked up his guitar, and led his band in an Elvis Presley-paced "Blue Moon of Kentucky." Meanwhile, over on CBS and Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, guest Dominic Monaghan, the actor from Lost, played animal handler for a day and brought out a gecko, some hissing cockroaches, even some snakes. And that show has writers.

Oddly, though the late-night repeats finally are over, we're still getting repeat guests. Bill Maher, who was on Letterman's Late Show last week, popped up on O'Brien on Friday. (His HBO show returns this Friday, presumably without writers - though Conan, like Dave, never asked.) And tonight on Late Show, Letterman's scheduled guests include presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who last week was seen on both The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Ferguson's Late Show.

But Tom Hanks is supposed to be there, too - and it's doubtful Leno will get any movie star that big to cross the Writers Guild of America picket lines to appear on his show. Huckabee did, last week - but he's a Republican, not a member of the Screen Actors Guild...