Late Night Television

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mfunk9786
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Re: Late Night Television

#226 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Jan 20, 2015 11:07 am

Anything that brings back some sort of iteration of Tough Crowd is much appreciated by me.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Late Night Television

#227 Post by Andre Jurieu » Tue Jan 20, 2015 12:33 pm

warren oates wrote:...in the same way that John Oliver's show feels too close to Jon Stewart's.
Format aside, at this point, Last Week Tonight is miles ahead of The Daily Show in terms of content and overall product. It seems like a real struggle for Stewart to be motivated any longer and I think Oliver might have left with their entire investigative staff.

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Re: Late Night Television

#228 Post by Robert de la Cheyniest » Tue Jan 20, 2015 1:14 pm

Same. I was about to chime in that I think that Last Week Tonight has become vastly superior to The Daily Show. I rarely watch Stewart cause it just seems like he's coasting at this point or they need new writers or something. This has been going on for a few years now, there was a point where I just watched Colbert too.

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warren oates
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Re: Late Night Television

#229 Post by warren oates » Tue Jan 20, 2015 1:54 pm

But the longform investigative/explainer stuff is really the only part of Oliver's show that's both significantly different and clearly superior. It's definitely tougher to do it four times a week with basic cable restrictions than just once with no censorship. So maybe what should have happened is that Stewart turned over the reins of his own show to Oliver, then went on to produce other shows like Wilmore's. Though it's impossible not to like Stephen Colbert or admire his skill in one on one interviews, I was never as much a fan of Colbert's show as the rest of the world, mostly because I wished he had the balls to stay fully committed, completely non-winkingly in character for 100% of the show's run time, like Phil Hendrie used to on the radio.

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Highway 61
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Re: Late Night Television

#230 Post by Highway 61 » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:34 pm

warren oates wrote:But the longform investigative/explainer stuff is really the only part of Oliver's show that's both significantly different and clearly superior.
Even in his shorter bits, Oliver addresses a wider variety of topics than Stewart, who is coasting on a "Can you believe what this Fox News pundit said?" routine. And earlier in the thread I mentioned what I enjoy most about the show: it's cosmopolitan. Every other late night show is always US-focused, making Last Week Tonight a refreshing change of pace. Bill Maher too occasionally ventures outside American issues, but he is so culturally and politically parochial that he can't even begin to compete with Oliver, who's been covering global politics for years on his podcast.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Late Night Television

#231 Post by Andre Jurieu » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:55 pm

warren oates wrote:But the longform investigative/explainer stuff is really the only part of Oliver's show that's both significantly different and clearly superior.
I think the fundamental thing that is really the same about the two shows is that Oliver sits behind a desk to mimic a news-anchor in a similar manner as Stewart/Kilborn have always done. Oliver only does a brief review of the events of the week and then goes into in-depth investigative reporting on about two topics each week. His interludes are not really very similar to the The Daily Show, he routinely creates a method by which his audience can participate in a mild form of protest, and his interviews are somewhat random in their frequency and focus on largely unknown guests that are closely tied to his main topic for the episode in an effort to further discuss the details and provide greater context. While I understand that the framework might be similar to The Daily Show, Oliver has made some significant modifications and - I would say - improvements. Basically, Last Week Tonight is the 60 Minutes of satirical news. Of course, (and I'm not meaning to imply that this is what you're demanding of him - just saying that the satirical news concept cannot easily be carried this far) the creators didn't bother to have a bunch of different comedians sitting in front of a sparse room with a weird graphic behind them, because Oliver doesn't want to skewer investigative journalism, so much as the lack of investigation and critical selection within existing news programming.
warren oates wrote:It's definitely tougher to do it four times a week with basic cable restrictions than just once with no censorship.
Yeah, I think one of the shrewdest moves that Oliver made was realizing that he could accomplish more with less. While taking over for Stewart during those few months, Oliver might have figured out just how exhausting and erratic creating a satirical-news show is when it's required to air four times a week. He also might have noticed how Stewart & co. had to start dropping certain aspects of the content due to turnover in talent, resource constraints, and (as Colbert experienced with his "Better Know a District" segments) general familiarity with the perspective of the show. Yet that realization and decision to narrow their focus is basically the genius of Oliver's show.
warren oates wrote:So maybe what should have happened is that Stewart turned over the reins of his own show to Oliver, then went on to produce other shows like Wilmore's.

I think that's what most observers within the industry thought would happen, since it seemed like a natural progression, which is why they were surprised that Oliver jumped over to HBO. I think people assumed that Oliver was being groomed to take over for Stewart or Colbert, depending on how the network late-night slots ended up shaking out. However, when Oliver decided to take the HBO offer, it kind of threw everyone for a loop.
Highway 61 wrote:Even in his shorter bits, Oliver addresses a wider variety of topics than Stewart, who is coasting on a "Can you believe what this Fox News pundit said?" routine.
Agreed. It's really becoming rather tiresome. Also, some part of me fears that Stewart and his remaining staff are becoming like my dad, where all they do is stress about the idiocy of Fox News and politicians ... and just mutter spiteful comments to themselves for a while, before steadily increasing their volume until they eventually start yelling at the television.
Highway 61 wrote:And earlier in the thread I mentioned what I enjoy most about the show: it's cosmopolitan.
Wholeheartedly agreed again. It's honestly refreshing to have Oliver spend significant time on issues that impact people around the globe.

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Highway 61
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Re: Late Night Television

#232 Post by Highway 61 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:10 am

So I caught the first episode of Larry Wilmore's show, and while it's fantastic to see a show unafraid to talk about race, it was a very disappointing debut. The problem is the format. 21 minutes isn't enough time to do a news piece and a five-person panel discussion. This was visible in the editing of the panel talk. The cuts were abrupt and conspicuous, and it's clear there was a more lively conversation in the studio, but the time just isn't there to broadcast it all.

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warren oates
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Re: Late Night Television

#233 Post by warren oates » Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:15 am

I agree. Bill Maher almost has three times as much time (or at least an even twice as much when you cut out the opening monologue, New Rules and the initial one-one-one interview) to do the same sort of thing and even then it sometimes feels like he and his guests have just gotten started.

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Re: Late Night Television

#234 Post by knives » Wed Jan 21, 2015 2:17 am

It still got a few good moments in though. There's a lot of roughness there and the Burr stuff was awkward (was it just me or did he leave at the end when the other four were hugging), but so did Colbert at first. I could see them working out something eventually. Plus he seems a lot less annoying than Maher.

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Highway 61
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Re: Late Night Television

#235 Post by Highway 61 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 2:39 am

Oh, he's most definitely less annoying than Maher. During the Bush years, I used to look forward to Maher's show every week. But now I find it intolerable.

Burr is funny, but yes, he was awkward here. When he said something like, "If you really read, you know that violence is the only way to change things," I got bad flashbacks to undergrad political philosophy courses. I'm still rooting for the show though, especially if it remains focused on race. The original title, Minority Report, promised something more outside conventional D.C. chatter, and I hope it lives up to that.

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Re: Late Night Television

#236 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 2:48 am

There are people on Fox News less annoying than Bill Maher.

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warren oates
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Re: Late Night Television

#237 Post by warren oates » Wed Jan 21, 2015 3:27 am

Ugh. Really? Name one. And show us one clip from Fox News more amazing than Christopher Hitchens' appearance on Maher's show opposite Salman Rushdie and Mos Def ("Mr. Definitely, can I call you that?").

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Re: Late Night Television

#238 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 12:02 pm

Can't find it on YouTube, but Kennedy owning Santorum over gay marriage merits a mention. I know her show is on their business channel but I do see her on the mothership when I'm at the gym on their noon show sometimes.

Bear in mind when I say less annoying, I mean like by fractions. I agree with about 75% of what Maher says but his smug attitude is a turn-off.

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Drucker
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Re: Late Night Television

#239 Post by Drucker » Wed Jan 21, 2015 12:16 pm

Flyonthewall I agree. Even some of his more controversial opinions I think have some merit/are worth discussing. But he's a bit of a prick. Luckily, he still retains a sense of humor and can joke around, even at his own expense, so he's not a total turn-off.

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Re: Late Night Television

#240 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 12:22 pm

Oddly enough I think the moment where I started to sour on him was when he sided with NBC over the whole Conan thing, which was surprising considering how he was similarly dealt away by one of the major networks.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Late Night Television

#241 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 5:02 pm

I think that was entirely because he's so friendly with Leno.

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Re: Late Night Television

#242 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:43 pm

Here's the clip, and watching it again I can't disagree with where he's coming from as much as I thought I did before.

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dx23
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Re: Late Night Television

#243 Post by dx23 » Fri Jan 30, 2015 1:56 am

The Nightly Show from this week in which they talked about the anti-vaccine movement proves that this show needs some serious tweaking. There isn't simply enough time on the show to have a panel to discuss these type of topics, as simple as that. This lack of time makes the show look half-assed and incomplete.


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Re: Late Night Television

#245 Post by Numero Trois » Tue Feb 03, 2015 1:06 pm

dx23 wrote: There isn't simply enough time on the show to have a panel to discuss these type of topics, as simple as that. This lack of time makes the show look half-assed and incomplete.
Reminds me of Bill Maher's old Politically Incorrect show. That had the same problem, among other things.

Oh, for Ron Reagan's old TV show from the early-90s which had absolutely none of those problems!

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Re: Late Night Television

#246 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Feb 05, 2015 10:19 am

What would be nice is if they did the panel for longer and just put the uncut version online.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: Late Night Television

#247 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Feb 05, 2015 10:41 am

On the other hand, I feel that impulse is partially responsible for The Daily Show's decline.


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dx23
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Re: Late Night Television

#249 Post by dx23 » Tue Feb 10, 2015 8:24 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Jon Stewart leaving The Daily Show
Just read that online and man, it's fucking sad. I watched it religiously on a daily basis since Jon Stewart began and the show was retooled as a political. satirical one. I wonder if this was a sudden thing that Jon felt or something else. Now, it would be great if John Oliver feels the void on a daily basis but I think he's better off on HBO doing the same thing only one night per week.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Late Night Television

#250 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Feb 11, 2015 2:18 am

Sad, though? Fifteen years of success ending with everyone and their mother willing to essentially turn their network over to you at the snap of your fingers doesn't seem very sad to me. Stewart is in the amazing position to be able to experiment with anything he wants for the next few years. Beats the Larry Sanders version that was having Larry's guests shuffled around when he filled in as guest host. He's beaten the system and there's thousands of episodes to prove it.

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