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Why The Daily Show With Trevor Noah isn’t thrilled about the huge Mars discovery

Alex Abad-Santos
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.

In the lead-up to Trevor Noah’s debut on The Daily Show, there was a question of how similar and how different the host would be compared with Jon Stewart, the man who ended up defining it. On Monday night, we got a taste of how funny and how different the new host could be, while still maintaining the sardonic spirit of the show.

Noah and new correspondent Roy Wood riffed off NASA’s discovery of liquid water on Mars. This discovery was huge, but Wood hilariously brushed off the idea. “I can tell you I don’t give a shit,” Wood said. “They want us to be excited about motherfucking water?”

The segment then opens up into a subtle and sarcastic moment about race. There’s still a lot of hilarity here — the same kind you’d find on any episode of The Daily Show — but it’s coming from a different perspective and uses humor in a different way.

“Black people ain’t going to Mars,” Wood continues. “Brother can’t catch a cab, you think we can catch a spaceship?”

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