Is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver new tonight on HBO, 7/23?
To better put things into perspective here, it has been close to three months since the last episode of the show aired. The WGA strike started in early May and unfortunately, there has not been a single update in negotiations ever since. The only thing that has changed is that the actors of SAG-AFTRA have joined them on the picket lines. Until we see resolution here, it is hard to imagine this show coming back.
There is an interesting question that we have wondered often throughout the strike: Is there a chance that Oliver could do a full segment on what transpired in negotiations when he returned? We do think there are a lot of people who don’t understand the particulars of this situation, from the looming threat of AI on creators or how little anyone receives in terms of streaming residuals. The problem here is that the AMPTP, the opposite side of the negotiations, represents HBO, Max, the studios, and many other entities. Oliver would be speaking out in some ways against the show’s own parent company. It is one thing to do “business daddy” jokes; this is on another level.
Ultimately, we could see a few references about the strike when Last Week Tonight with John Oliver comes back, but probably not anything more than that. The show likes to stay more focused on the present than the past — unless “the past” refers to the past seven days.
It does, at least for now, remain unclear as to how soon we would see the show return to HBO once the strikes are over, but we don’t think it would require a lot of lead-up time.
What do you want to see on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver when it returns?
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(Photo: HBO.)