3x17 Doping

This one gets by on its main segment. The look at doping had the right mix of humor, insight, and education, and didn't shy away from the complexities or difficulties of the issue. From the way that doping is omnipresent, to the lack of real oversight, to the people who have an interesting in things staying the way they are, the episode did a good job at not pretending this is something as simple as "punish the wrongdoers" or "just fix it," while elucidating the issues at the center of it at the same time. Lots of good laughs too.

The only thing that keeps it from being higher are the opening and closing segment. The whole Brexit thing is a rehash of the same bit the show did last week, and there wasn't much to add. I understand that this is something near and dear to John Oliver, but the humor and the barbs just aren't as sharp. Similarly, the doping comedy sketch at the end didn't really do it for me either. The joke was kind of half-baked to begin with, and while spoofing the Olympics' inspirational videos is a good idea, the execution was off.

With every Last Week episode I see, I've even less and less faith in the world.

He has a very simplistic world view sometimes. He actually thinks doping CAN be controlled? He ridicules the idea of just allowing doping, but it's both the only and the most effective option. Want fair sports? Let them dope. The moment you start testing you risk some people slipping through, THAT makes sports unfair. Want safe sports? Professional athletes are all under pressure to dope, it's going to happen, the way to minimize risks is to get rid of the taboo around it. If an athlete is admitted to the hospital but scared to admit that he took a substance he can't be given good medical care. The only thing we can do is to stop treating professional athletes like gods. There's much, much bigger issues with large sports competitions like the football world cup and the Olympics than doping anyway.