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John Oliver Has Promising First Week Hosting Jon Stewart's 'Daily Show'

Kathy Zerbib |
June 14, 2013 | 3:40 p.m. PDT

Film Editor

Get used to seeing more of this face! John Oliver is now running the "Daily Show" (Comedy Central).
Get used to seeing more of this face! John Oliver is now running the "Daily Show" (Comedy Central).
This week "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"'s Senior British Correspondent John Oliver began his three-month takeover of Jon Stewart's host chair. As expected, Oliver is already proving he is the perfect shoe-in while Stewart is on leave.

In March it was announced that Stewart would take a hiatus from "The Daily Show" to direct a film adaptation of Maziar Bahari's (Who appeared on the show in the past) New York Times' memoir "Then They Came For Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival." In his place would be John Oliver, who has been with the show since 2006.

Because this is the first leave Stewart has taken since he started on the show (approximately 14 years ago), much speculation has gone around about ratings post-Jon Stewart. Those fears can now be put safely to rest, as Oliver amassed about 1.5 million viewers his first Monday night and has remained consistent in numbers for the rest of the week.

How was his performance this past first week to merit such record numbers?

John Oliver has been around the show long enough to know how things are run. The show opted not to change very much since Stewart's departure, and Oliver has either not been given the opportunity to evolve his anchor role or would rather not do so. Either way, the writing is still as hilarious as it ever is and Oliver delivers his joke with the same presentation that Stewart does.

As a correspondent on a mock news program, Oliver formerly played the role of a partly-deranged, partly-irrational British journalist. Now that he is in the seat of the anchor, he appears less ballistic and more reasonable in the face of his correspondent colleagues. As "reasonable," that is, as a show like "The Daily Show" would permit him to be.

Oliver is ideal to fit Stewart's role because of his energy and comedic antics. He is not afraid to make cracks at his own expense to gain a roar of laughter, nor does he ever give a half-hearted performance when reporting as a correspondent. For instance, his attempt at a Southern accent this week was both a good effort and quite terrible. Afterwards, he even admitted so. Oliver is not just a pleasure to watch because he's British and is establishing that he is ready for a permanent promotion when Stewart returns.

If a critical comment had to be made against Oliver, it would be his slight case of uneasiness when doing the routine live interview near the close of every episode. Such interviews require on-the-spot questioning, typically fueled in whichever direction the guests' responses lead to.

For the first couple of nights, Oliver had a slight struggle with interviews and this is to be expected. Though he has been a correspondent long enough to be able to grasp the fundamentals of the position, he previously stuck with edited interviews that allowed him to maneuver his way through a conversation however he wanted to. With improvisational interviews, he needs a little work. Then again, Stewart still has days when he needs a moment to gather what he wants to ask his guest and he has been running "The Daily Show" for nearly 15 years. John Oliver will learn just fine.

Naturally, a replacement is never usually as good as the real thing. Jon Stewart is dearly missed and his return is highly anticipated; but, for now, we are more than satisfied with having John Oliver in his shoes.

Reach Film Editor Kathy Zerbib here; Follow her on Twitter here.



 

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