http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rSDUsMwakI When last spotted in his indigenous habitat, John Oliver was sharing his perception of 2016 and what was to come: a dystopian hellscape. All for laughs. Or largely for laughs, anyway. The 39-year-old British comedian is host of HBO's award-winning Last Week Tonight, and he embarks on a new season on Sunday night after a three-month layoff. In an interview with NPR, Oliver reluctantly concedes that President Trump will define the shows this season. Oliver carries a distinctly liberal sense of humor and a distinctly serious sense of purpose about his satire in an age when politics, journalism and entertainment have often not just blurred definitions but have swapped numbers, apartment keys and Netflix passwords. Which leads him to such topics as opioid abuse , sketchy credit report company practices , pharmaceutical pricing , school segregation , Brexit , corruption in international soccer . "If you described that, you wouldn't watch it," Oliver