‘The Daily Show with Trevor Noah’ begins with humor, familiarity

For those of you who were wondering just how different “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” would be from its predecessor hosted by Jon Stewart, we got an answer on Monday night: It really was not that different at all.

Noah did not make any sweeping overtures to the brand during his first appearance on the show, opting mostly for the same sort of political coverage that Stewart would have, except with maybe a little more of a raunchier edge at times. We do think he fared better when it comes to pure laughs than we anticipated he would. We never so much doubted Noah’s abilities as a comic, but we were worried about him drowning in the sea of expectations caused by following someone who spent a decade and a half making people around the world relentlessly fall in love with him.

Some of Noah’s best moments came early in the show, when he joked that he had two goals as a child: Getting indoor plumbing, and then becoming the host of “The Daily Show.” He is now pleased to officially have achieved both of them, and is pretty comfortable with one. He also had fun with the fact that multiple people, including multiple women, turned down the job. He also claimed that many Americans were asked before him, and he was now yet again an immigrant coming to take a job that Americans did not want to do.

Does some of the show still need work? Sure. We are mostly talking here about the interview with Kevin Hart, which was a little too much like one on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” when it comes to hero worship. Stewart never felt as comfortable doing celebrity interviews as he was with notable political figures, but he did eventually get a certain cadence down.

What did you think about the “Daily Show” premiere with Noah? Let us know below, and head over here in the event you want some other TV news on everything we cover, sent right in your direction via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Comedy Central.)