Blogs

I Ain't Missing You At All

By Matthew Felling

November 16, 2007 / 12:03 PM EST / CBS News

(CBS)

When life gives you lemon, you make lemonade.

And when a writer's strike shuts down TV, media types try to douse reality with sugar water and look at the bright side, too.

How else to explain two recent pieces about how MediaLand residents are making do without current episodes of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report?"

According to Slate:

A Grey's Anatomy rerun is a bummer only if you've already seen that episode, a Daily Show rerun is the television equivalent of a day-old newspaper. It's birdcage liner.
A five-year-old episode of The Daily Show, on the other hand, is pure gold.

And a piece in this week's Boston Phoenix tries to suggest that not even the writer's strike can stop the force of nature named Stephen Colbert:

In fact, Colbert has reached such revered status at this juncture that even in a period of relative inactivity — not doing a show, not running for president — people are talking about him, wondering about him, and waiting for his next move.

Really? Are you spending time pondering Colbert, talking about him and wondering about him?

Yeah. Me neither.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some Stewart and Colbert and miss them now … but the writer's strike isn't necessarily making me love them more. (As it turns out, Pac-10 football and Charlie Rose aren't good substitutes for the comedy duo. Go figure.)

So while I appreciate the effort to work the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" angle -- with the Slate piece (nonsensically) going so far as saying "why you may never watch Jon Stewart live again" -- I'll be a lot happier when I have the satirical combo back.