Tonight was a good night for television. Scrubs‘ revamped new season is really pretty great; I love the Denise focus. Last year’s best new show, Better Off Ted, is back on the air as of tonight and it’s just as great as ever.

But the best thing about tonight’s TV? The Daily Show. Now, Jon Stewart and Co. are consistently fantastic but I almost never write about them. I watch the show every single night, and despite the occasional (and understandable) boring episode, The Daily Show usually makes me laugh and or think. But tonight’s episode was particularly exceptional.

First off there was a segment about India, featuring Aasif “drywit” Mandvi, which was one of those segments that stops you in your tracks and makes you think about the state of American warfare in more simplistic and startling terms than you might be prepared for.

Next up was one of the best segments I’ve seen the show do. It wasn’t just a standard shot at FOX news and their ironic, ludicrous mistakes like showing a poll that adds up to 120% during a segment about exposing falsified data. It was a call to action. Jon Stewart, it seems, has run out of rope on just making fun of these people; he’s reached the point where he just needs them to smarten up, for everybody’s sake. So instead of editing together a montage of Gretchen Carlson failing to understand basic terms like “Tsar” and leaving it at that, The Daily Show spent their time and resources proving that the Fox & Friends co-host was a smart and accomplished woman capable of much more than the dopey character she plays on morning talk TV. Instead of putting down the violin playing Stanford grad, The Daily Show did something refreshingly different and asked her to stand up.

The show ended with an interview with my absolute favourite Daily Show guest. As far as Republicans go, I’m really kind of fond of Mike Huckabee. I think he’s a good guy, whatever his politics may be. For one, he’s a 3 time guest who is up for debate, isn’t scared off by the liberal demographic and is never afraid to take a hit from my beloved Jon (unlike Lance “stupidhead” Armstrong who basically sat there and said “please don’t pick on me”), he’s smart and gracious and open to opinions that aren’t his own. When Mike Huckabee’s on The Daily Show a rare thing happens: two smart people with opposing ideologies find a way to listen to each other and have a real live discussion about things that matter, without party lines and random resentments crowding in. When Mike Huckabee’s on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart suits up to play hardball and actually has an opponent as capable and willing to play as he is.

It really was a remarkable day at The Daily Show.