John Oliver got to take a break from Last Week Tonight after a contentious election, but the hiatus is ending and he’s on his way back with a new season in February. HBO has released a promo for season 4, and it shows the late-night host managing to hilariously plug several of the premium network’s hit series, including Game of Thrones, right along with his own.
Self-deprecating as always, the promo shows Oliver mistakenly assuming thinking his show is being described as “HBO’s biggest Sunday night show,” a “smash-hit comedy,” and “the HBO show everyone’s been waiting for.” He gets a rude awakening when he discovers that the praise belongs to Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, respectively. Apparently, Last Week Tonight is just “one of HBO’s Sunday night shows,” as the YouTube video description says. Hard truths, John.
Oliver isn’t the first comedian to use Game of Thrones to make an entertaining show promo. Last year, an Inside Amy Schumer season 4 promo showed the host preparing for “Schwinter.” However, Oliver has his own unique spin, and he gets a little help from Silicon Valley‘s Kumail Nanjiani and Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Larry David.
One of the best moments in the promo is when the Last Week Tonight host comes face to face with Nanjiani. The actor is blunt with Oliver, telling him, “At best you’re an acquired taste.”
Be that as it may, Last Week Tonight is a critical darling. The series has won numerous Emmys and a Peabody Award, among other accolades, over the years. That Oliver can make it look like it is just another show is a testament to the amount of hits HBO has on its hands.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver makes its “moderately anticipated” return to HBO on February 12.
The countdown begins. On Feb 12th, we’re making our moderately anticipated return…https://t.co/2WtJlQQEMc
— John Oliver (@iamjohnoliver) January 18, 2017
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.