So Last Week Tonight had plenty of funny throwaway lines. It wasn’t dry (a press photo showing Rahul Gandhi earned him the nickname “The Indian Han Solo”) but it also didn’t shy away from the not-immediately-farcical aspects of the election (frontrunner Narendra Modi’s possible role in the 2002 Gujarat riots.) “Right, but people’s concern, I think,” said Oliver, “is you’re not just taking the haystack, you’re taking the whole farm, and the county, and the state, and you’ve got some photos of the farmer’s wife in the shower as well.” 
 
 Alexander was to come in for still worse (watch the full interview here). Last Week Tonight ended by leaving the studio and going to a pre-taped interview — in Daily Show terms, Oliver is both host and correspondent. Interviewing Keith Alexander, the former NSA Director, Oliver managed to get in some solid questions about the much-despised agency’s practices. Then he trapped General Keith Alexander, the recently retired head of the National Security Agency, on camera, and made him sit through a series of NSA rebranding suggestions that included a kitten called Mr Tiggles and, simply, “the Washington Redskins”. (He served as his own correspondent, in a pointed interview with former NSA head Keith Alexander about the agency’s image, getting the former chief to volunteer the slogan, “The only agency in government that really listens.”) If Oliver wants to keep the show’s bare-bones format, some more varied taped pieces could work (like the Lisa Loeb parody of a twee Oregon ad for its glitch-plagued health exchange), as might some different desk bits that would give him the change to change up the show’s rhythms. The set of Last Week Tonight looks like a lot of late-night sets: John Oliver sat at a desk in front of a fake skyline. And 11 PM on Sunday is a strange time for either (although you could argue that it’s a savvy programming move, now that Sunday has become The Night We All Watch Too much TV.)
– John Oliver's new HBO show debuted last night, and it featured possibly the most aggressive interview anyone's managed with former NSA Chief Keith Alexander. Almost all of Oliver's questions were barbed ("What would you like Snowden to know right now, other than significantly less?"), and sometimes he descended into outright mockery. ("You do understand that 'collect everything' is also the motto of a hoarder?") The segment ended with Oliver suggesting the NSA re-brand itself "Mr. Tiggles," an adorable cat in a boot, or "The Washington Redskins," which Oliver described as "a slightly less tainted brand than yours." Asked which he'd go with, Alexander (who generally weathered the interview with equanimity), suggested people vote on it. Opening up Oliver for his final gag: "At long last, Americans are being allowed to vote on something to do with the NSA." Here's what people are saying about the debut: That interview segment saved an episode that "seemed in danger of bombing," writes Tom McCarthy at the Guardian. "The value of the confrontation was not simply that Oliver made fun of Alexander," he writes. "Oliver also showed himself to be an effective interviewer by coming back at Alexander with a quickness and precision that the former top spy has very rarely encountered in public." While the Daily Show is clearly "Oliver's spirit animal," this show "suggested the sharpest possible version of its inspiration," writes Darren Franich at EW. It was "as if Oliver spent his Daily Show tutelage making a list of everything that works—and everything he wanted to do just a little bit differently." James Poniewozik at Time appreciated Oliver's "sharper tone and his globalist, English-outsider perspective," which showed itself in a "sweeping essay" in India's election and the lack of coverage it was getting in the US. But the show "did feel simultaneously long and breathless, maybe because there was very little to vary it." Oliver might need a few more taped segments, or to get himself some correspondents of his own.