{"id":6383,"date":"2014-10-13T18:11:45","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T23:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/?p=6383"},"modified":"2014-10-16T10:19:14","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T15:19:14","slug":"television-review-last-week-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/archives\/6383","title":{"rendered":"Television Review: Last Week Tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Last-Week-Tonight-with-John-Oliver\"<\/a>By Hannah Hecht–\u00a0<\/strong>When I first heard that John Oliver, former correspondent for Jon Stewart\u2019s Comedy Central fake-news hit, was leaving The Daily Show to start up his own HBO series, I was expecting another Colbert Report-style spin off. And, to be honest, I was excited. I\u2019ve enjoyed both shows ever since I became old enough to watch them with my mom at the 10 and 10:30 pm timeslots. For me, both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report offered an avenue to increase my awareness of what was going on in the world (from a teenage baseline of knowing absolutely nothing), and they gave some insightful, if crude, criticism of U.S. policies and popular culture. Where the major news outlets presented everything in an objective light, Jon Stewart wasn\u2019t (and isn\u2019t) afraid to pull up statistics and call people out when they were wrong. And I guess that I have to admit that I enjoyed the comedy aspect.<\/p>\n

So after discovering that John Oliver\u2019s Last Week Tonight was available on YouTube<\/a>, I decided to watch a few clips. And then a few more. And then entire episodes. And then every single video on his YouTube channel.<\/p>\n

Many times throughout this endeavor, I laughed until my sides hurt. Oliver\u2019s comedic timing is impeccable.<\/p>\n

But, much more importantly, I gained a more in-depth grasp of many current issues than I ever could have by watching the nightly news.<\/p>\n

On the surface, Last Week Tonight looks like just another fake-news show; the comedian host sits at a news desk and makes jokes about current events while supplemented by badly-photoshopped pictures in the corner of the screen. However, it accomplishes much more than I think its predecessors (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, SNL\u2019s \u201cWeekend Update\u201d) have ever done.<\/p>\n

The main difference is that Oliver highlights just one or two issues per weekly Sunday night show. The result is a twelve to twenty minute long exploration of a single topic that allows for a depth of understanding that none his the predecessors were able to reach.<\/p>\n

The result is a comedy show that is insightful first and entertaining second. The Daily Beast even labeled Last Week Tonight,<\/a> despite Oliver\u2019s statements to the contrary, \u201creal journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show shines at its best when given the chance to point out injustice in little-known or discussed areas. Segments include discussions of U.S. drone strikes in the Middle East<\/a>, the Miss America Pageant<\/a>, America\u2019s prison system<\/a> (with a little help from Sesame Street), and net neutrality<\/a> (a piece which many pro-net neutrality websites take as the definitive explanation of their cause).<\/p>\n

Last Week Tonight is a perfect television show for college students to help get a baseline understanding of many different issues that affect the world today. Clips from the show also make great topics for Morningside honors classes\u2014you\u2019re welcome. Obviously, watching a comedy show once a week is not the same thing as reading The New York Times, but I think that Last Week Tonight is a great place to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hannah Hecht–\u00a0When I first heard that John Oliver, former correspondent for Jon Stewart\u2019s Comedy Central fake-news hit, was leaving The Daily Show to start up his own HBO series, I was expecting another Colbert Report-style spin off. And, to be honest, I was excited. I\u2019ve enjoyed both shows ever since I became old enough…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":6386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6383"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6398,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6383\/revisions\/6398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}