Apple TV Plus has set the premiere date for comedian Jon Stewart’s new show, and you won’t have to wait very long: The Problem with Jon Stewart debuts on Thursday, September 30.
Stewart will both host and executive produce the new Apple TV Plus series. Each hour-long episode of The Problem with Jon Stewart will explore a single issue. This format is similar to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the popular HBO program hosted by Stewart’s old Daily Show colleague.
Apple describes The Problem with Jon Stewart:
“It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the world’s problems. It’s harder to pinpoint the systems responsible for creating them. In this series, Jon Stewart brings together people impacted by different parts of a problem to discuss how we come up with change.”
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Jon Stewart’s return to TV
Stewart signed off from The Daily Show in the simpler times of August 2015, when Barack Obama was still US President, Straight Outta Compton was the top-grossing film, and there was no global pandemic dominating headlines and shutting down businesses. The now 58-year-old comedian had hosted the iconic Comedy Central show for 16 years.
Starting in 2015, Stewart worked with HBO on multi-platform digital shorts that would have allowed the comedian to re-enter the political fray without the daily demands of a live talk show. However, by 2017, Stewart and HBO formally canceled the highly anticipated initiative.
Since then, Stewart’s most notable public appearances have involved lobbying for 9/11 responders’ funding. In June 2019, he made a fiery speech in front of a US Congress panel about the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund’s depleting reserves. Stewart’s address went viral on social media, and the next month, the bill passed.
Stewart’s new series is the latest high-profile premiere on Apple’s nearly two-year-old streaming service. It follows the success of Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, and the Billie Eilish documentary The World’s a Little Blurry.
Apple TV Plus is available on most online platforms, including Apple and non-Apple devices and requires a monthly subscription.