Is Bill Maher's Real Time necessary in 2019?

GQ

Maher's long-running HBO show is "a vestige of a different decade," says Drew Magary. "During Maher's tenure," he says, "HBO has given him carte blanche to say what's on his mind, much of it often dull and unfunny. And they’ve kept him on his lofty perch for nearly two decades, allowing him to hold court with panelists as toxic as Ann Coulter and Dinesh D'Souza, or anyone else he can spar with on camera and then go get loaded with off camera ... Real Time is as clubby and worthless as the Sunday morning news panels where Washington insiders get to act all chummy with one another and pretend that their policies don’t actively harm real people." Magary adds: "John Oliver surpassed Maher as a commentator the instant his show debuted on HBO. That's because Oliver is, you know, actually funny. But it's also because Oliver actually CARES about issues. His show is meticulously researched and has a definitive point of view. It isn't a cocktail party. We don't NEED Real Time's brand of jocular discourse in 2019, especially when one side of that discourse is performing in bad faith, and when Maher doesn't care because he just likes flaunting his phone contacts to a mass audience. He's not a comedian anymore. He's a pundit, and a useless one at that. And his show has done far more to legitimize sh*tty people than it has to subvert them."