Watch the whole first episode of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight
Facebook/Last Week Tonight with John Oliver


The first episode of John Oliver's new show has been posted on YouTube, and it's quite an ambitious effort. He mocks the total lack of U.S. coverage of the upcoming Indian elections (5:38), which will be the largest vote in human history, while actually doing a reasonable job of explaining the basic political outlines of the country. He looks closely at an obscure Supreme Court case about food labeling (15:30) pitting Coca-Cola against a pomegranate juice manufacturer. And finally, he interviews former head of the NSA Keith Alexander in classic Oliver style (24:23).
All in all, quite an encouraging first effort. Check it out here.
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Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
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