Agreed. As much as I love John Oliver, we were already thinking of ditching our cable subscription entirely. I’m definitely not going to be paying to upgrade to a premium channel just for this.
The December 19 episode was the last Daily Show of the year, so it was John Oliver’s last appearance on the show. They spent most of the first segment saying goodbye and looking back at his work, and it was very sweet. I’d put him on my personal Daily Show Mount Rushmore. I think he’s one of the very best correspondents they’ve ever had.
And it was clear that John Oliver didn’t know the tribute to him was coming.
Yeah, sorry - I am watching these so sporadically on DVR that I don’t even think to post on what’s happened. It was a nice good-bye and yes, I agree that Oliver is pretty high up there. It has really become a source for talent - I hope he carries on that tradition for his work outside TDS. And clearly Jon Stewart relishes the role - nice all around…
Yes, and though this is slightly off-topic - I couldn’t tell if they did the “planned bit” about British royals, and then edited it out, or if Jon Stewart just took a right turn before the bit started. It sounded like the second, but there was also a weird edit right about there.
The reason I care is because I’d like to see the bit if they did it.
I didn’t notice that edit, but I did think the way they stopped the bit was odd. And you can see that the position of Oliver’s hands changes after he finishes speaking and they cut to shot of Stewart and Oliver at the desk. I bet they cut out most of the nut bit because the John Oliver Retrospective thing ran long. EDIT: Then again Oliver says “we’re not doing the bit?” which makes it sound like he expected them to keep going.
That was my impression, they cut the bit very short and Oliver was completely surprised.
Honestly of all the correspondents John Oliver is my favorite. But hey, January 2nd we get Community back and hopefully Oliver shows back up early in this short season. I think I reported earlier they expect him to do at least 6 episodes this season.
My take (could be wrong) was that they did do the full bit (or much more of it) and then edited it out. When the tribute starts Stewart asks what he’d thought of the bit they’d just done and I took Oliver’s “we’re not doing the bit” to mean he realized it wasn’t going to be in the final show.
And it was sweet to see Oliver so obviously sincerely moved by it. But I also know it has been an emotional period for him too (I assume his wife is back from the Philippines by now).
I like John Oliver, but they could let all the correspondents go and I wouldn’t care. What’s funny for me is Jon Stewart at the desk skewering the news. I always fast forward when they do staff reports…or any time John Hodgeman is on.
Maybe (and I generally prefer the desk over the taped bits myself as well) but if they had to write 18 minutes of materially for Jon Stewart every night, the average quality would probably go down.
Not to mention that they provide evergreen filler for days when there just really wasn’t much noteworthy going on in the news/media mocking world.
The beginning of the show is usually my favorite, too, but it it were 17 or 18 minutes of Jon Stewart and 5 minutes of an interview every night, it would probably get monotonous for all concerned - Jon included, since he seems to really like most of the correspondents.