So, John Oliver has had his show for over a month now and I would like to talk about it, so these are my thoughts on its progress. First, its utterly fantastic. Yes, the format is basically The Daily Show and I thought as I think even John Oliver did as well, that his show couldnt really be a Daily Show replacement and just be another one of those shows. The guy seriously considered how he would be different and add something new to the conversation and it shows because he came up with a fantastic solution to that problem. He chose to literally add something NEW to the conversation. The show airs one half once a week. Its not The Daily Show simply because of that. They have a week to prepare 30 minutes of television instead of a day. This results in a lot more work being spent researching and coming up with more brilliant material than even The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. You have no commercials and longer segments because theres time to do an in-depth story with more information. Think of it as a clip show of the best of the week from the other guys. Its their shows but concentrated yet expanded at the same time. Ill explain. I said he is adding something NEW to the conversation. This comes in story selection. Since hes covering the news of the previous week, he knows theres already been a lot said about the big news both by comedians and through the news cycles. The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert have already had their crack at that premise putting him at a disadvantage. Try imagining trying to covering their stories better than them every week. This is clearly something hes considered from the content he chooses. Hes cherry picking HUGE stories that no one is talking about. His first episode was The Indian election which quite literally was the largest election in human history with nearly a billion voters, a story that certainly wasnt discussed at all on other channels and if so, certainly not in any level of detail like he did. He covered the real reasons Net Neutrality is so important and effectively brought down a page on the FCC website because of his expression of his thoughts. Seriously watch that segment if you havent yet. It couldnt have been as thorough on basic cable or as good in many ways. I share below a lengthy twelve minute story on FIFA as well and why its a horrible organization, another topic I havent heard much about through the World Cup coverage of Qatars selection. Hes a funny man and someone that has proven himself in the shadow of The Daily Show, but his show is performing an actual public service in its story selection. The Daily Show will give you perspective on the mainstream news stories. This show is giving you everything it can on the huge stories you are not hearing about. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have done this as well at times. This guys done it 6 episodes in a row. Hes very much on track to be a better show than both of those. Im going to assume if you are reading this that you already like John Oliver as I do and knew hed be great at this. But I want to add the impression here that not only is he great at hosting a news comedy show, hes a great mind for steering a ship in a direction his own and if we follow will take us somewhere new that we really need to be without even knowing it. You are being much more fully educated here by this guy week after week in a way that is addicting and entertaining. Im going ahead and saying this beats anything right now being added to Netflix. Watch this one instead.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 05:30:40 +0000
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