Black presided over two opposing guest comedians championing a person or thing as the "root of all evil" (YouTube, beer, Oprah Winfrey, PETA, etc.).

After the advocates gave their closing arguments, Black asked for the audience's opinion, which he seldom followed, and announced his verdict and the loser's sentence.

Even before the first episode was broadcast, Brian Lowry in Variety attacked the show, saying that the guest comedians were "second-tier" and that the set "resembles a cut-rate version of The Weakest Link set" and that "Comedy Central's programming usually falls squarely into the sublime or the ridiculous, so consider Root of All Evil a rare tweener in terms of quality—one that proves a whole lot of Black is preferable, albeit marginally, to a black hole.

For as long as it's around, though, it does make a good fit with a Comedy Central lineup that includes Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Sarah Silverman and, of course, South Park.

[6] The entire first season of Lewis Black's Root of All Evil was released on two disc DVD set in the United States on September 30, 2008.