Season finale of Last Week Tonight


The show had its last episode on Sunday before going on hiatus until February. The show’s seasons usually end with a splashy finale but given the current situation, this one was weirdly interesting. The end of it reminded me of a scene from the film Michael Clayton with George Clooney but that was not popular enough to be worth alluding to and I am open to other suggestions.

I also find it interesting that the film 2001: A Space Odyssey has had such a major cultural impact that hearing the Strauss waltz The Blue Danube no longer brings to my mind people swirling around in elegant outfits in a huge ballroom but instead suggests some kind of event on a cosmic scale is about to occur.

Comments

  1. flex says

    And while certainly dramatic, I’m not certain I agree with using Holtz’s Mars from his suite The Planets for buildup before the finale.

    Or am I the only one remembering the Heinlein reference? You grok?

  2. Rob Grigjanis says

    hearing the Strauss waltz The Blue Danube no longer brings to my mind people swirling around in elegant outfits in a huge ballroom but instead suggests some kind of event on a cosmic scale is about to occur.

    That piece (by Johann Strauss) was used for the dance between the space shuttle and the space station. Nothing particularly cosmic about that. The cosmic stuff was by Richard Strauss and György Ligeti.

  3. John Morales says

    It was nicely absurdist and surreal. Still, blowing up those drums of naphtha to make the explosion effect seem “real” (in the movie sense) is a bit of a shame. What a waste.

    As for the old-timey type music, meh. These days, the “classics” are the 60s through to the 80s.

  4. seachange says

    I cringed at the smoke and had to check my breathing since my state has only recently stopped being on fire.

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