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HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ Season Finale Draws in a Series High

This image released by HBO shows Bella Ramsey, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from the series "The Last of Us." (HBO via AP)
This image released by HBO shows Bella Ramsey, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from the series "The Last of Us." (HBO via AP)
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HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ Season Finale Draws in a Series High

This image released by HBO shows Bella Ramsey, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from the series "The Last of Us." (HBO via AP)
This image released by HBO shows Bella Ramsey, left, and Pedro Pascal in a scene from the series "The Last of Us." (HBO via AP)

“The Last of Us” fans set another rating record for the season one finale of the apocalyptic, mushroom-infected zombie video game adaptation. Despite airing against the Oscars Sunday night, HBO said the season finale drew in 8.2 million viewers.

Viewership for “The Last of Us” has consistently grown throughout the season. The series has not only won over gamers with high expectations but also critics and people who aren’t familiar with the game.

The series premiere drew 4.7 million viewers in the US, based on Nielsen and HBO data, making for HBO’s second-largest debut, behind “House of the Dragon.” Outside of the US, “The Last of Us” is now the most-watched show in the history of HBO Max in both Europe and Latin America, HBO said.

As viewers watch episodes on the streaming platforms days after the episodes air, the numbers for the series will continue to increase. The series is now averaging 30.4 million viewers across its first six episodes, with the first episode approaching 40 million viewers in the US, HBO said.

HBO did concede to the ratings behemoth that is the Super Bowl, dropping the fifth episode of “The Last of Us” on HBO Max and HBO On Demand early last month on the Friday before the big game on Feb. 12. But the ratings for episode five were still strong, with 11.6 million viewers from Friday through Sunday.

The series finale ended with Joel making some difficult and controversial decisions that left viewers wondering what was next for protagonists Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal). While not much has been officially announced about the second season, fans of the video game know about “The Last of Us Part II” and are eagerly anticipating how the game will be adapted for season two.

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Entertainment

In Show Stretched over 50 Years, Slovenian Director Shoots for Space

The first performance took place in 1995, and the last one will be in 2045. Jure Makovec / AFP
The first performance took place in 1995, and the last one will be in 2045. Jure Makovec / AFP
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In Show Stretched over 50 Years, Slovenian Director Shoots for Space

The first performance took place in 1995, and the last one will be in 2045. Jure Makovec / AFP
The first performance took place in 1995, and the last one will be in 2045. Jure Makovec / AFP

In an innovative show directed by Slovenian artist and space enthusiast Dragan Zivadinov, a crew of actors is putting on the same play once a decade over 50 years.

And if they die before the half-century run of performances ends? They are replaced by satellite-like devices that the director says will eventually be launched into space.

"If you ask me who will be the audience of these emancipated, auto-poetic devices -- it will be the Sun!" Zivadinov, 65, told AFP after the latest staging in the remote Slovenian town of Vitanje last month.

The first performance in the series took place on April 20, 1995, in the capital Ljubljana; the second was in Star City, a town outside Moscow that has prepared generations of Soviet and Russian cosmonauts. And the last one will be in 2045.

This time, 12 actors, most of them in their sixties, took part, wearing futuristic monochrome coveralls and dancing along a spaceship-like cross-shaped stage made of monitors.

Two so-called "umbots" -- artistic satellite-like devices emitting sounds -- replaced actors who have died since 1995.

'Makes you think'

Hundreds turned up to watch the play, "Love and Sovereignty", a tragedy set in the early 17th century by Croatian playwright Vladimir Stojsavljevic. It deals with power and art and features English playwright William Shakespeare as a character.

"It is an interesting experience, makes you think," Eneja Stemberger, who studies acting in Ljubljana, told AFP after watching the packed show.

Tickets offered for free online quickly ran out, but the organizers allowed even those who came without tickets to watch the show, standing or sitting on the floor.

German art consultant Darius Bork told AFP that he had already seen the play 10 years ago, describing Zivadinov's work as "absolutely fantastic".

Zivadinov became internationally recognized in the 1980s as one of the founders of Slovenia's avant-garde movement Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Art), which criticized totalitarian regimes in then-Communist Yugoslavia.

At the end of the century, Zivadinov turned to develop "post-gravity art".

He also helped set up a space research center in Vitanje, named after the early space travel theorist Herman Potocnik, who went by the pseudonym of Noordung and whose work inspired Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey".

The Center Noordung hosted this year's and the 2015 performance.

The "Noordung: 1995-2025-2045" project's final performance will feature only "umbots" and so be "liberated from human influence", Zivadinov said.

At the end of the project, the "umbots" -- containing digitalized information, including the actors' DNA -- will be propelled into space to "culturize" it, he added, without detailing how he would do that.

"They will all be launched simultaneously, each one into a different direction, deep into space," he said.