John Oliver's HBO Series Pulls Strong Ratings Thanks to 'Game of Thrones,' Available to Watch Online Free

Looks like John Oliver owes the Lannisters a debt of his own.

"Last Week Tonight," HBO's newest offering, pulled in strong ratings in its 11pm time slot following "Game of Thrones," "Silicon Valley" and "Veep" with one million viewers, actually improving on its lead-in. "Game of Thrones" likely contributed to both shows with a very strong 6.9 million viewers.

"Silicon Valley" was also a winner last night with a solid 1.6 million viewers in the 10pm time slot, immediately following "Thrones."

The show, which stars former "The Daily Show" correspondent John Oliver, follows a similar format to "Daily Show," only weekly. Reviews of the first episode have been mostly positive, though some argue that the show would benefit from a longer format in order to spend a bit more time covering the many topics it will need to cover considering that it takes on a whole week's worth of news.

The network is making a big advertising push for the new show: Commercials have been running all week on multiple networks, not just on HBO. What's more, HBO has released the first episode of the series on YouTube to watch for free, regardless of whether or not you have a cable or HBO subscription.

Check out the first episode of "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" below.

Note: Embedding has been disabled, so you will have to watch the episode directly on YouTube.