Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Military Translators, Supreme Court
TV Flash files “Military Translators, Supreme Court” as hour 21 of 371 in the TV Flash guide — Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014–present) on HBO, season 1, episode 21, aired 2014-10-19, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E21: listed hour 21 of 371 in the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver guide, hour 21 of 24 in season 1. It aired 2014-10-19 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “2022 Winter Olympics, Hong Kong protests, Brazilian elections & Civil Forfeiture” (S01E20). Next is “Sugar in Food, Dr. Jane Goodall, Doug Ford” (S01E22).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
This week's topics include Putin's impressive trip to Milan, a McDonald's Q&A board promising to answer all questions truthfully and the bureaucratic roadblocks preventing local nationals who translate for coalition forces from obtaining U.S. immigrant visas. This segment includes an in-studio interview with Mohammad, a translator whose attempts to obtain a visa took three years, and lost family members to the Taliban during that time. The last segment tries to solve the problem of boring news coverage of Supreme Court sessions (because the court does not allow video). Last Week Tonight shows how the coverage can be made more compelling by using animals staged as the Justices and other court employees. The show then thoughtfully provides ten minutes of raw footage for news outlets to use to create their own Supreme Court reenactments.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Military Translators, Supreme Court sit in the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver guide?
S01E21 is listed hour 21 of 371 — hour 21 of 24 in season 1, season 1 episode 21.
When did Last Week Tonight with John Oliver S01E21 air?
Military Translators, Supreme Court aired 2014-10-19 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Do I need to watch every week in order?
Each episode is a topical deep dive, not a serial plot. Jump at a subject you care about; net-neutrality-era segments are the origin myth of the civic-homework clip.
In the series
Why this series still plays
John Oliver turned late-night into a research department with punchlines: twenty-minute deep dives on net neutrality, prisons, and whatever lobbyists hoped you would never google. Civic homework disguised as comedy — explainer satire that actually moved petitions, and a host who treats footnotes like setups.
Sunday night, and the group chat is doing homework. After *The Daily Show*, John Oliver's HBO late-night series debuted April 2014 with Tim Carvell and James Taylor in the engine room: twenty-minute deep dives on net neutrality, prisons, and whatever lobbyists hoped you would never google. Segments sparked real petitions and news cycles. Multiple Emmys for variety talk. Footnotes as setups. (Spoiler-free: the joke comes with a syllabus.) Lana can have the tuxedo. **The ship is the explainer, and the replies are…
Open the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver package · Season 1 hub
Filed against
- John Oliver as Host
John Oliver’s correspondent weather on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart made a fake newscast feel like a civic classroom, then Last Week Tonight turned the same research into twenty-minute deep dives — 2000s catalog Stewart era, 2010s…
Also in season 1
- S01E01 Indian General Election, NSA's New Image, POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co.
- S01E02 Death Penalty, François Hollande, the Sultan of Brunei
- S01E03 Bill Nye, the U.S. Senate Election in Kentucky, Global Warming Controversy
- S01E04 Fareed Zakaria, General Motors, Right to Be Forgotten
- S01E05 Net Neutrality, Tony Abbott, 87th Scripps National Spelling Bee
- S01E06 FIFA and the World Cup, Bashar al-Assad