I used to watch HIGNFY religiously (well, religiously like a Jew - every Friday night) but stopped a few years ago when I just couldn't take any more of the 'here's a funny video we saw on Youtube' and 'have you noticed how fat John Prescott/Eric Pickles is - haha' piffle they'd come up with.
Caught a couple of the episodes of this series (Charlie Brooker hosting and another one whose host I seem to have expunged from my memory) and they were worse than ever. Merton is still just phoning it in - I can understand why he might do this, it'll be great money for not much work but it's a waste of a real talent. Hislop just doesn't seem to have any fire in his belly at all any more - seems like he's settled in to become the cosy establishment One Nation Tory he always was at heart.
If the remit of the show is still to have some element of satire and speaking truth to power (as well as being actually funny) then it needs a total reboot with new people.
If you put this up against what John Oliver is doing on Last Week Tonight there's just no comparison in terms of TV satire.
Yah, similar, nearly thought I'd start watching again after reading this page but you've saved me (I think) Guess I'm never in on a Friday either and cant imagine I'd ever make the effort to catch up with it
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