Jon Stewart's return to The Daily Show anchor chair generated some of the biggest numbers for Comedy Central since 2018.

The February 12 episode of The Daily Show, simulcast on Paramount Global cable networks including MTV, Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, Pop and MTV2, drew 1.85 total viewers, including an encore airing at 1:30 am. The figures do not include viewing on Paramount Plus.

On Comedy Central alone, The Daily Show had 930,000 viewers, the most since 2018 and the most-watched telecast on the channel since 2017, Paramount said, citing Nielsen data.

Also Read: Jon Stewart (Not So Subtly) Calls for Dems to Replace Joe Biden in 'Daily Show' Return

Stewart’s return drew more viewers than his successor Trevor Noah’s final episode in 2022. During 2022, Noah’s Daily Show averaged 385,000 viewers.

Stewart will be anchoring The Daily Show on Mondays. Other cast members will host the other nights of the week.

In the more than 3,100 days since he departed Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart seemed to take his seriousness and his gravitas to another level, spearheading grinding policy initiatives such as the grueling fight to get Congress to extend special benefits to military veterans harmed by burn pits.

The Daily Show certainly was never entirely whimsical, but the comedian's follow-up effort in the video entertainment business, Apple TV Plus’s The Problem With Jon Stewart landed pretty far from a half-hour basic cable show that helped so-called “coastal elite” viewers unwind. 

So when Stewart, 61, abruptly announced in January — eight months before a pivotal election — that he was returning to oversee the rebranded TDS, and would host it once a week on Monday nights, it was safe to assume that he wasn't merely making a retrograde career move to wind down the clock. 

“I’ve learned one thing over these nine years,” he told his audience on Monday. “I was glib at best and probably dismissive at worst about this. But the work of making this world resemble one you’d like to live in is a lunch pail job, day in and day out.” 

Evidenced by his first night back as host on Monday, Stewart is done even pretending about the “comedy” part of the job. He's going back to work, using a platform that fits him better than anyone else to achieve some real policy and political goals. 

But this time, his fervor and urgency seem far more intense than his most influential and halcyon Daily Show moments … say, 21 years ago, in the run-up to the ill-fated invasion of Iraq.

And the left, which has long been Stewart's base, might not be so in love with the early game plan, at least not initially.

Indeed, it doesn't appear, at least on first glance, that the erstwhile Daily Show under Stewart's glorious return, will merely serve as a platform for the left-leaning pundit to prop up Joe Biden’s sagging poll numbers against Donald Trump in swing states. 

But don't confuse the strategy with "bothsidesism" -- Stewart, not so subtly, wants the Dems to make a deal before the trade deadline. 

“One thing we know for certain is this: we have two candidates who are chronologically outside the norm for anyone who has run for the presidency of this country in the history of this country,” Stewart said. “They’re the oldest people ever to run for president, breaking by only four years the record that they set the last time they ran.”

Surface-level analysis suggests Stewart has reverted to safe “both-sides” cover. But let's be real. His audience never has been or ever will be remotely MAGA … or even independent voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, for that matter. On Monday, five days following a disconcerting DOJ report about Biden's mental competency, and weeks into primary season, Stewart was speaking to just one side. 

His message: Even if Biden does squeeze by, do you really want to enable an 86-year-old to perform the most important job in the known universe?

“Joe Biden isn’t Donald Trump,” Stewart said. “He hasn’t been indicted as many times. He hasn’t had as many fraudulent businesses. He’s never been convicted in a civil trial of sexual assault, or been ordered to pay for defamation, or had his charities disbanded, or stiffed a shit-ton of blue-collar tradesmen he hired. Should we even get to the grabbed-a-pussy stuff? Probably not. 

“But the stakes of this election don’t make Donald Trump’s opponent less subject to scrutiny,” he added. “It actually makes him more subject to scrutiny … November 5 is nothing to sneeze at, but neither is November 6 or 7. If your guy loses, bad things might happen, but the country is not over. But if your guy wins, the country is in no way saved.”