Yesternight witnessed the first new Daily Show episode that has aired since early November…sans writers. Yes, that’s right. The much publicized return of the Daily Show seemed to be missing a key component: the Emmy award winning writers that actually make the show funny. In case you missed it the episode can be found here. I hope you recognize the irony of being able to watch the episodes online (I almost missed the enormous mastercard ad while I was researching for this post).

I think that the highlight of the night was maybe John Stewart’s “Solidarity Unibrow” that he grew over the past few months to show support for his striking brethren. The sad part is that the unibrow stunt happened in the first few seconds of the show and only went downhill from there. Overall, the episode could only be described as no less than uncomfortable. John completely dropped his disarming tone and spoke about the strike and labor issues in general with a completely sarcastic tone. He was put in a very awkward position, though, it obviously showed. The WGA refused to make a side deal with Stewart because the Daily Show is owned directly by Viacom, which is one of the WGA’s main foes. Sources say that Stewart was furious with the WGA for refusing to make a deal and because he was forced to start his show again by Viacom we are left with a sketchy version of the Daily Show that Stewart aptly named “a” Daily Show.

Meanwhile, the strike is coming up on its third month and has marked its first major casualty. The Golden Globes have been officially cancelled! That’s right, actors invited to attend the ceremony simply refused to attend. This puts a lot of pressure on the studios for later on down the road when the cash whore Oscars come around in late February. My guess is that the studios will be a little more flexible and be willing to make a deal once they realize that the Oscars being cancelled is at all a possibility.