The Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj on Netflix is ​​the late-night show we need

The Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, which recently debuted on Netflix, may well be the late-night show that the streaming giant, as well as viewers, needed.

Despite its abject comedy, the game Late Night Talk Show is a fierce competition. Most major television networks in the United States lag behind for audiences and viewing, even if their hosts minimize backstage rivalry. And since 2016, after a reality TV star (and a business mogul) has become the leader of the free world, the role of the late-night talk show, as well as that of its host, has radically exchange.

What was essentially a variety show, with a mix of celebrity interviews, sketches, skits, and musical numbers, just the news, has now become a journalistic exploration of the issues of the day with stories and stories. in-depth investigative facts. -checking, broken by interviews cut with celebrities. Even skits and skits now have a socio-political motive and people love it.
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It is also the story of our time when people in the United States and abroad are getting more and more news from these night shows rather than traditional news channels. It's almost as if everyone needs comic relief to ease the dreadfully depressing news cycle from around the world.
HBO provided an outlier in the traditional late night show format with Last week tonight with John Oliver. The show airs one episode a week, as well as Sunday, contrary to the usual schedule of each week. He also focuses on a topic for the entire show and explores it in detail, while avoiding the usual interviews with celebrities (although many celebrities appear in his sketches). Given his thorough investigation and his penetrating mind, it is not surprising that Last week tonight For the past three years, he has dominated the trophy competition, winning virtually every trophy for which he was nominated.

Netflix entered the game quite late and his early attempts were neither successful nor particularly engaging. The break with Michelle Wolf was canceled after only a few episodes, while Norm McDonald has a show and My next guest does not need an introduction with late-night legend David Letterman are more vanity projects for their guests than anything else.

Hasan Minhaj can be the exception.

While The Patriot Act It only aired three episodes in the past week (its debut, October 28, had two episodes and a new one every Sunday after), which has already generated a lot of positive reactions. Like Oliver, Minhaj focuses on a subject in the 18-minute series of the series, offering a thorough and incisive exploration of the subject.

Unlike Oliver, however, Minhaj does not sit behind a desk, but rather goes to a scene surrounded by enthusiastic spectators. He stays up all the time while he dialogues with the audience, with some new sketches and news clippings flashing on the screen behind him, thus offering viewers a new format: stand-up comedy part, part of information coverage, part of the analysis in depth and all fun.

The topics explored by Minhaj also play a role: timely and strangely relevant to the organizer, a millenarian Indo-American Muslim comic book, born of immigrant parents. His first episode focused on the recent class action brought by the parents of American-Asian students against Harvard's admission policy, while the second episode dealt with the House of the Saud against the recent murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Minhaj does not kill either, noting how he was rejected from Stanford and how, as a practicing but liberal Muslim, he feels the repression of Saudi Arabia, known for its two most sacred sites: Mecca and Medina. Hear about the typical "helicopter" son of NRI parents discussing the positive action of Ivy League is hilarious; Hear a Muslim talk about his frustration about an autocratic family fixing realpolitik to all his faith, even if by default, open his eyes.

The last episode focuses on Amazon and its services, which Minhaj honestly admits to be addicted, and how a company that started as a bookstore is about to monopolize global commerce. And despite Amazon's "Weinstein-level" predatory practices and prices, Minhaj points out that "as an Indian, he has to choose between" Woke "and" Lazy ", the latter takes it away.

This helps the team of journalists and writers to The Patriot Act have done a fantastic job, whether it's investigating behind-the-scenes stories or describing them in easy-to-understand, informative, and amusing terms. Not an easy task.

It would be premature to suggest that The Patriot Act is the new Last week tonightSigns so far seem promising. Be careful, the Indians are coming.

The Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj broadcasts new episodes on Netflix every Sunday