DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

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LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER
August 17, 2014  | By David Bianculli

HBO, 11:00 p.m. ET

 

We’re closing in on the final month of shows by John Oliver this season, and give the man credit for finding a unique approach, as well as comic voice, in that short a time. Oliver, in this series, has done something so many times that it has to be considered a design rather than a happy accident. He’s taken the Sunday night placement of his Last Week Tonight series and utilized it the way newspapers (you remember newspapers) used to devote extra space and time on special Sunday stories. As a result, a piece on the week’s featured topic can run well past 10 minutes of air time, and allow Oliver to approach it from several angles, offering insight as well as punch lines along the way. So keep watching – as with his Comedy Central colleagues Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, he’s educating as he’s commenting. And to those who are alarmed by the prospect that many of today’s young viewers get most of their news from the likes of these three TV comics, my response is this: Even if that’s true, those young viewers could do a lot, lot worse.

 
 
 
 
 
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