Samantha Bee mines issues for humor in new show

Fans of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” know Samantha Bee as the show's “most senior correspondent,” whose deadpan sarcasm and ability to ask the tough question and still get a laugh helped make her a mainstay for 12 years.

Now she brings her talent for finding comedy in the most awkward of situations to her own show, “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” airing Mondays beginning Feb. 8 on TBS.

Few details were available at this writing, as the show was still in development. But it is known that the 46-year-old Toronto native's unique interviewing style and reporting from the field will be front and center. Topics include the rise of Islamophobia during election cycles, the inconsistency of women's services at the VA and an American orientation program for Syrian refugees in Jordan.

And of course, in all of this one can expect humor. Anyone who has watched Bee's interviews knows they could border on the absurd, but Bee admits there is discomfort on her part.

“I still get really nervous when I go into an interview. I get tense,” she says. “I still do because some of the questions are pretty challenging and you never know how people are going to take them. I do try to create as much context as I can for the person that I'm interviewing, which really helps me, actually, feel relaxed and I think helps them to feel open.”

Still, a few have taken exception to her line of questioning.

“But not as often as you would think,” she says. “I can really count those episodes on one hand, when people walked away feeling terrible about the experience, which is surprising. But people mostly felt like, ‘Well, at least I got my point across. At least I said what I wanted to say.' Which is good.”

Even before she left “The Daily Show” last spring, Bee had a few irons in the fire. In addition to “Full Frontal,” she is also co-executive producer with husband (and fellow “Daily Show” alum) Jason Jones of TBS' upcoming comedy series “The Detour,” in which Jones is also the star. And she's also working on a young adult novel she refers to as her “labor of love,” which is due out this fall.

Bee is thankful to have come through the incredible comedic incubator of “The Daily Show,” one that has produced such other talents as Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Larry Wilmore, Ed Helms, Wyatt Cenac and Jones. She credits Stewart with giving her considerable creative leeway.

“The one thing that he did always say was, ‘explore your passions,'” Bee says. “Like, if you want to explore something, he gave us a lot of space to do the kinds of stories that we wanted to do. And especially me toward the end.”