Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Decaying Infrastructure in the United States
March 2, 2015 1:43 PM - Season 2, Episode 4 - Subscribe

In Russia, another Putin critic, Boris Nemtsov was gunned down. (CNN) FCC passes Net Neutrality rules. (BBC) Scientists suspect gerbils, not rats, were responsible for bubonic plague. (New Yorker) Last Week Tonight makes a video apologizing to rats and demonizing gerbils. Main story: The crumbling national infrastructure of the United States, and why it's hard to do something about it. (LWT YouTube, 21m) LWT provides a trailer for an action movie about performing basic maintenance on roads and bridges.
posted by JHarris (19 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
As an experimental compromise between just providing YouTube links and making huge followup "geeklist" comments, I'm experimenting with this post about providing a handful of news links in the text to supplement the episode, when Last Week Tonight video itself isn't on YouTube. Is this confusing for anyone?
posted by JHarris at 1:45 PM on March 2, 2015


Nice tribute to Leonard Nimoy.
posted by Pendragon at 3:48 PM on March 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Their twitter lists the movie trailer credits as Edward Norton, Steve Buscemi, Josh Lucas, Hope Davis, Campbell Scott, Dan Hedaya, Michael Gaston and Vince D’Onofrio.

The Norton and Buscemi cameos were funny but I think the inclusion of actors like D'Onofrio or Hedaya is what makes the bit great. They aren't big enough names to make their inclusion a big reveal and any other comedy show would have just filled their parts with interns or local actors. But they are there because that's exactly who you would get to play that role in a blockbuster movie.
posted by Gary at 5:05 PM on March 2, 2015 [7 favorites]


Buscemi: I'm the best damn inspector in the business and I'm here to inspect this dam.

Norton: I'm ordering uniaxial tests of the slab transverse to the deck corrugations, with additional reinforcement and tension tests of the support fastener connections between the deck and the girders, bitch!
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 5:48 PM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


I thought this was an extremely weak episode, I was struggling to stay awake once the infrastructure segment started.

I know, "infrastructure is not sexy" and all that, but you really expect me to get incensed about the U.S. only ranking ~16th in infrastructure? Who cares?

Not much other than the parts about Boehner's quest for a funding source seemed at all timely or interesting; the rest was all "did you know that STRUCTURES can AGE"?? Smash-jumbling together pieces about broken bridges with a cyclist hitting a pothole doesn't make a compelling narrative for me.

I also thought the Infrastructure trailer was either way overproduced or way underproduced. It was too long and hit a weird movie trailer uncanny valley.
posted by tjgrathwell at 6:55 PM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Buscemi: "I'm the best damn inspector in the business and I'm here to inspect this dam."

Why did that line give me an Armageddon flash-back?
posted by bigendian at 7:01 PM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's weird the audience laughed during the segment on Nemtsov.
posted by mlis at 7:24 PM on March 2, 2015


You do not want to watch an underproduced infrastructure trailer. That's basically a deathtrap waiting to happen.
posted by figurant at 7:25 PM on March 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


cyclist hitting a pothole

The cyclist died. I'm sorry that didn't make enough of a compelling narrative for you, but it worked for me. Potholes are minor annoyances (though they can cause damage) to cars, but they are dangerous for people on two wheels.
posted by aabbbiee at 8:15 AM on March 3, 2015 [6 favorites]


Who cares?

People who use bridges, roads and other infrastructure ? You SHOULD care!!
posted by Pendragon at 8:35 AM on March 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


For anyone who is wondering, the Greenfield Bridge in Pittsburgh (the one with the nets and the bridge to catch any falling debris) is going to be imploded this year and replaced with a new bridge in 2017.

I also realized something about LWT's main segment: there is almost always a clip from an Al Jazeera America story on the exact topic. Makes me wonder if I should be watching AJAM more.
posted by ALongDecember at 9:11 AM on March 3, 2015


there is almost always a clip from an Al Jazeera America story on the exact topic.

I thought the same thing about them showing multiple clips of Steve Kroft (from a 60 Minutes piece on the same topic?). I was wondering if the show is eventually just going to air entire news stories unedited while John sits in the corner making jokes. MST3K for journalism, basically.
posted by Gary at 9:49 AM on March 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was wondering if the show is eventually just going to air entire news stories unedited while John sits in the corner making jokes. MST3K for journalism, basically.

I would watch the fuck out of that.
posted by Weeping_angel at 11:38 AM on March 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


It's weird the audience laughed during the segment on Nemtsov.

Yeah. I don't fault the audience; if the procedures on Oliver's show are anything like those on Stewart's and Colbert's, the audience is instructed to amp up their laughter as much as possible. But I'd say those procedures backfired in this case.
posted by Shmuel510 at 12:01 PM on March 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


(Maybe it's just that Oliver isn't yet as adept at tamping down such results when they're inappropriate.)
posted by Shmuel510 at 12:12 PM on March 3, 2015


im surprised the show didn't talk about that bridge that collapsed a few years ago, killing a ton of people.
posted by rebent at 12:59 PM on March 3, 2015


im surprised the show didn't talk about that bridge that collapsed a few years ago, killing a ton of people.

It was a bit strange to talk about infrastructure failures and not mention the 2007 I-35W Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis. 13 died, 145 injured. Maybe they figured everyone knew about it already?
posted by ALongDecember at 1:10 PM on March 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


Not mentioning the I-35W Bridge Collapse is odd. The collapse and aftermath was very surreal. If nothing is done nationwide, I could see that happening again, in some other city.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:58 PM on March 5, 2015


I was surprised about the bridge too. I actually drove over that bridge just a few hours before it collapsed with literally my entire life's possession's in tow (I was beginning a big cross-country move on that day). I was super lucky.
posted by GrumpyDan at 3:03 PM on March 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


« Older Podcast: Song Exploder: Jeremy...   |  Podcast: Dan Carlin's Hardcore... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments