Last Week Tonight with John Oliver premiere: Is the ‘white void’ still there?

As we prepared for the 2021 premiere of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, there was one main question we wondered. Would the late-night HBO series finally return to the studio?

For most of the 2020 season, Oliver recorded his new episodes remotely, in a space he commonly called “the white void.” At the end of last season John seemingly left said void, and the key art above even references the subject.

Yet, despite all of this, Oliver will not be back in the studio for Sunday night’s new episode. As a matter of fact, there is no timetable on the subject for now. Speaking in a new interview with Deadline, here is some of what he had to say:

I mean, each studio and circumstance is different, right? For us, I think it would have been great to be back in a studio, but I don’t think we feel like we can do that yet. So we’ll be in the void for who knows how long? Well, I guess until they can roll out the f—-ng vaccine!

Oliver went on to claim that he hasn’t seen much of his staff in person in a solid year, and there are some employees of the show at this point who he’s never met. Crazy, right? Such is the way of things when working during a pandemic.

While it would be nice in order to have Last Week Tonight back in the studio at some point this season, the truth is that it’s just not needed. We’ve grown used to not having the audience laughter there, and by the end of the season the at-home production was not a significant drop-off from what we saw in the studio. There will be a time where we can leave the void once and for all — yet, for now we’re fine that Oliver and the crew are prioritizing safety first.

What do you most want to see when it comes to the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver premiere?

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