Last Week Tonight won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Talk Series at the 74th Emmy Awards, which was its seventh win in a row for that category. Ever since Jon Stewart stepped down from The Daily Show in 2015, John Oliver’s weekly HBO show has received more critical acclaim and awards than any other talk show, winning 26 Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, five Writers Guild of America Awards, and countless others.

Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert were all nominated for the award this year (as usual, more or less), but Last Week Tonight and John Oliver took home the gold. Did it deserve to? Why is this show winning the same award year after year?

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Last Week Tonight Wins By Being Different

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First, it must be said that the competition against Last Week Tonight is simply weak in comparison. Obviously, this is all subjective, but it’s frankly clear why Last Week Tonight triumphs over all these other shows. Yes, Last Week Tonight has the benefit of only airing weekly, while the Jimmys of the world (Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, James Corden) and all the other nominees have to put out shows every weekday. That’s an obvious advantage which gives Last Week Tonight more time to research and ponder the week’s events and their traditionally long deep-dive investigation. But really, if Last Week Tonight were on every weekday, it’d be an information overload.

There is so much going on in an episode of Last Week Tonight, so it’s kind of a blessing that it only airs weekly. Each episode is a rapid-fire, no-nonsense presentation of facts, jokes, and graphics that demands the viewer’s attention. Unlike all the other late-night talk show hosts, Oliver doesn’t pander to his audience, never pausing to soak up the applause or congratulate himself and his astounding team of writers and researchers for their jokes or knowledge.

Every other nominated talk show is so beholden to the format, so addicted to the light-up applause sign, that they just feel stale. If you edit out all the commercials, fluff, and applause breaks, any one episode of these shows would actually be shorter than Last Week Tonight. It worked for Carson and Letterman, but in 2022, viewers need more.

The Bland Politics of Most Late-Night Talk Shows

The political dimension is also a boon for Last Week Tonight. Every other nominee essentially tells the same jokes, preaching to a left-wing choir by mocking conservatives and anyone between California and New York. They discuss the same news items, they make the same jokes, and they lack the same depth and diversity. Oliver, while still liberal, is more all-encompassing, and one doesn’t need to have a certain political ideology to enjoy and learn from his show. Yes, he would do well to devote some deep-dives into the Clintons or the Bidens as opposed to Trump, but for the most part, Oliver is political in a nonpartisan, much less elitist way.

When Last Week Tonight devotes 25 minutes to utility companies, the Subway franchise, sex work, mental health care, rent, or The Weather Channel, no viewer needs to have their ideology checked at the door for admittance. This allows his show to be informative and hilarious in a way that the other nominees simply can’t. This is not to say that they’re all bad — Kimmel is frequently hilarious and goes for the jugular, Meyers is eccentric and loose in a fun way, and Colbert is a charming genius, even if his new show isn’t (compared to The Colbert Report).

However, they’re all depressingly typical and timid compared to Last Week Tonight and some other talk shows. Now, if The Problem with Jon Stewart, PAUSE with Sam Jay, or the uncomfortable, bizarrely sublime Ziwe were competing with Last Week Tonight, then Oliver’s show might actually have some competition. Last Week Tonight absolutely deserves its Emmy Award every year, but that’s only because the Emmys refuse to acknowledge those aforementioned shows or weirder talk shows like The Eric Andre Show or the diverse, wonderful TV series inspired by Last Week Tonight, such as Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj and Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas.

Last Week Tonight Deserves its Emmy

Ultimately, Last Week Tonight stands head and shoulders above all the other competition. With TikTok, podcasts, and YouTube providing news and comedy at a rapid-fire pace (such as with the phenomenal Chapo Trap House podcast or the brilliant YouTube show Some More News), all the other nominees seem utterly bland. The days are gone when a handsome old white guy in a suit could stand in the spotlight and make cheap jokes to a prepared audience night after night and still expect acclaim and awards. The Jimmys, Seths, and Stephens of the world, no matter how charming or clever they may be, need to learn that the biological imperative is televisual as well — evolve or die.

Every episode of Last Week Tonight is available for streaming on HBO Max.