Yeah, it’s making waves on the grounds that it’s kind of the opposite of how the Daily Show and the Colbert Report tend to relieve tension over the terrible things that happen in politics. Oliver actually prioritizes explaining the situation over the jokes and even though he is funny, he leaves you still mad at the end. That’s the general take on it I keep reading. But actually, I always found that Stewart and Colbert left me still angry. But I agree that Oliver is further toward a news show with jokes than a joke show featuring news. He spends time on one subject that would have amounted to most of an entire episode of the Daily Show.
He is credited with crashing the FCC’s website, because they put out a request for comments on Net Neutrality. Oliver explained the controversy to his audience and told the trolls of the world that this is the opportunity that they were born for – go out there and be heard! Reddit apparently also probably had a lot to do with the fact that the website couldn’t handle the traffic, but Oliver is generally getting the credit.
I’ve seen every episode and he is greatly improving as he goes along. He only does an interview once in awhile and I really like that he spends 15 minutes or so on one topic and dissects it fully. He and his writers have the advantage of an entire week to put their show together and it really shows.
I typically am enjoying it more than the Daily show, but the Daily show has to do one daily so I think they do a fine job with the time they have.
I think Last Week Tonight is utterly fantastic. I love how Oliver goes in depth into a particular issue. So unlike a Daily Show or Colbert Report, it’s not just rapid fire news stories, but far far better than that.
Also, I like that I can watch segments on Youtube (and since they are going in depth on a particular issue, it doesn’t matter that I can’t watch it until 3-4 days to a week after it originally airs).
Yeah I agree that it’s a great show, and I love the length of the segments. The Daily Show and Colbert could be this good if they had this format…but they don’t. I love them all!
I find Oliver funnier in the Last Week Tonight show than the Daily Show. I think it’s the longer format. His lengthy rants however are EXCEEDINGLY well written. He does not rely nearly as much on mugging as Stewart does – though granted, Stewart can REALLY milk a joke with his mugging.
Alas this has brought a hiatus , and probably an end, to The Bugle podcast and unlike Bill Maher , this show is not available via podcast. It would almost get me paying for cable again.
I love John Oliver and I am delighted he has his own show, especially because he manages to bring things to my attention that I hadn’t heard about. He does, however, rely on the word “fuck” too much for its emphasis value when expressing outrage, and it’s losing its punch.
To be fair, Last Week has the advantage of being able to do long, in-depth stories. The Daily Show is time-constrained not only by the time they can take between commercial breaks (about six or seven minutes at best), but by the imperative to “cover” the actual daily news with at least mentions of whatever hit the headlines that day.
Perfectly true but nonetheless I stand by “old and tired”, Last Week is not limited by the constraints you mention. That’s it’s advantage and it’s exploiting it wonderfully.
he is informed and brilliant and more than a little funny.
“Police are not soldiers,” Oliver said. “Why are they wearing camouflage? If they want to blend in with the surroundings, they should be dressed as a dollar store.”
Apparently they do bleep on YouTube. Weird. I’m always telling my mom about how hard it is to find any online videos without cursing. Surely no advertisers tell people to avoid it.
YouTube and other online content providers may be trying to head off regulation–which would be more likely to be instituted if some grassroots campaign “to save the children from hearing the f-bomb” got started.
I think those clips are put up on YouTube by HBO itself, as a promo. I suspect bleeping out bad words is a part of their regular standards for promo material. Very much doubt that it’s YouTube itself censoring them, given, you know… everything else on YouTube.