Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Airplanes & ‘Willy Wonka’

There were so many things that we anticipated entering the March 3 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, including the unofficial Willy Wonka experience in Scotland that took Twitter by storm. Were we glad it was mentioned? Sure, but we also wish that it had longer than 10 seconds of airtime.

However, we do recognize that this is a busy time when it comes to the news. The show opened with a segment about the Supreme Court, which largely gave the host a chance to revisit his segment about Clarence Thomas from earlier in the season. So far, the Justice has not accepted that offer of a rather fantastic salary plus a giant RV to retire from his position … and he certainly won’t and Oliver knows this. It is really just an opportunity to continue to play out that bit.

As for the main segment tonight, this was really one that has been a long time coming: Airplanes. After all, consider what happened with that Boeing disaster not that long ago that got a lot of public attention. The reality here is that there are so many other problems within the airline industry that we simply do not know about. Why? Well, airplanes are not a part of life for every American but, beyond just that, there are a handful of massive companies who have a major share of the market. In particular, Boeing is at the top of the list, and that is why they had the lion’s share of attention during the episode.

If you are watching Last Week Tonight for information (which feels like it is the point at least sometimes, right?), we do think that what we saw in this segment delivered. There was a lot about the company that we weren’t aware of beforehand, including their onetime record of overwhelming success. This was a history lesson as much as anything, and we didn’t even think that Oliver himself hated Boeing. This is more about what went wrong, and the ways it could be improved — albeit with extra humor.

What did you think about the March 3 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver?

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