The Colbert Report is the best show on TV bar none. You heard me right. That means The Colbert Report is better than The Daily Show. If that's blasphemy to you, then you're probably one of those assholes who wasn't willing to admit that Family Guy was better than The Simpsons when it first came out. Then a few years pass and you'll finally acknowledge Family Guy's greatness, but you'll still say that it's not better than The Simpsons was in it's prime. Enough of this bullshit. Legacy means jack, so stop giving old shows credit they don't deserve.
The Daily Show is a great parody of a newscast, but it suffers the burden of dealing with actual news. Stephen Colbert just talks about whatever random shit he wants. Also, unlike Stewart, Colbert can dish out attacks to conservatives without sounding like a liberal.
Stephen Colbert doesn't take shit from anyone. If you mess with him, you're "on notice", and if you really piss him off, you're "dead to him".
What has Stephen Colbert accomplished since the show started? How about reviving the formerly extinct word "truthiness" and making it the 2005 word of the year? And guess what? He did it in the very first episode.
Not impressed yet? How about the time he called all 5 of his Oscar predictions (Best Supporting Actor/Actress, Best Actor/Actress, and Best Movie) using "The Da Colbert Code"? This guy is unstoppable.
Regular viewers of The Colbert Report are rewarded with references to previous episodes and several recurring segments. Colbert's most famous segment, "Better Know a District", is a 434 part series detailing each congressional district in America and usually features a hilarious interview with its representative congressman. It's only a 434 part series because California's 50th district screwed up so horribly that it "never existed to him".
Stephen Colbert has such creativity and a strong command of the English language that he can take practically anything and make it entertaining. He isn't bounded by political correctness, intimidated by power, or held hostage by facts. This is a brilliant show, and it's only going to get better.