Jon Stewart Could Return to TV Before the Election, Says HBO Exec

It has now been exactly nine months since Jon Stewart left The Daily Show, and while Trevor Noah has done his best—in the quintessential “tough act to follow” situation—he hasn’t managed to fill Stewart’s enormous shoes. In elections past, Stewart and Stephen Colbert were appointment viewing as liberals tried to grasp onto the remnants of their sanity, and now there’s a tremendous void. Stewart is gone, Colbert has been neutered at CBS, and the Noah/Larry Wilmore combo is eminently missable.

But it’s not all darkness! HBO, the network that gives us current most-brilliant-man-on-television John Oliver, also signed Stewart to a four-year production deal last November. Now, according to network CEO Richard Plepler, he may actually come on air before the general election. In fact, he even used the word “hopeful”!

“We now have the flexibility to let you paint however you want to,” Plepler said at an event at New York’s Paley Center for Media. “[Stewart] has free reign to do whatever he wants.”

The production deal calls specifically for “short-form digital content,” so any appearance Stewart makes will probably be for HBO Now, the network’s streaming service. But that, as they say, is most certainly better than nothing. Viva Stewart!