Today's What's Alan Watching? newsletter coming up just as soon as crows hold grudges...
What's next?
Coming up in what looks to be a very busy next week or so for paid subscribers:
- My recap of the next episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms;
- Another Ask Alan video mailbag for What Else Is Alan Watching? bonus tier subscribers (so send in those questions);
- Thoughts on the Seth Rogen-produced revival of The Muppet Show;
- My recap of the next episode of Shrinking;
- My recap of the next episode of Starfleet Academy, a Deep Space Nine tribute; and
- My recap of the next episode of The Pitt.
Catching up
Here's what I've published since last Friday's newsletter:
I recapped the second episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, where Dunk and Egg made a whole lot of new friends — and, judging by the reaction here and on social media, won over a lot of fans — through sheer likability:
Alan Sepinwall
I reviewed Britbox's terrific Riot Women, the latest show from Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright, about an English punk band whose members are all middle-aged women:
Alan Sepinwall
I recapped the super-sized Shrinking Season Three premiere, which made me laugh and cry in equal measure:
Alan Sepinwall
I wrote about a Klingon-centric episode of Starfleet Academy, which is where I began to feel the new show coming into focus:
Alan Sepinwall
I offered some additional spoiler thoughts for the five other Wonder Man fans about the goofy but delightful farewell entry of the "everybody gets their own show" era of the MCU:
Alan Sepinwall
I recapped the fourth episode of The Pitt Season Two, where the ED was flooded with patients from another hospital:
Alan Sepinwall
They'll be back
Alan Sepinwall
Shortly before that Shrinking Season Three premiere dropped, Apple announced that it had already ordered a fourth season. With regards to this specific show, it's great news. (Although, because I'm watching one episode a week as I recap it, I have no idea how this season ends and what it might suggest about stories for future ones.)
But on a broader level, the announcement continues a larger recent trend, where networks and streamers announce renewals just before a new season, or a new series, debuts. HBO Max did the same for The Pitt earlier this month. There are a few high-profile exceptions to this — FX is famous for taking forever on its renewals, even with series that are obviously hits — but on the whole it's become almost surprising when a high-profile show's premiere isn't immediately preceded by an official pick-up for more.
This is, to put it mildly, a big change from the good old days when there were only the broadcast networks and PBS, and we had to walk uphill through the snow both ways to get to a new episode of Veronica's Closet — or even from the pre-Peak TV explosion of original content on cable. Back then, early renewals were rare. And even then, ordering a new season of a show before a single episode of the upcoming one had aired? Unheard of.
So what's happening? A few things. First, all those decades of keeping the audience in an information vacuum, and also of abrupt cancellations, made viewers extremely gunshy about sampling shows. Over the years, I've often heard people say that they're not going to watch a new show until they know it's getting more than one season, because they've been burned too often in the past by falling in love with series that didn't go the distance. I've even heard people say this about shows in their second seasons. There are a lot of other things competing for the attention of would-be viewers, and when you add this uncertainty factor to that, it's hard to blame people for not wanting to commit to a show that won't commit to them. But this unfortunately becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, where if nobody wants to risk trying something new in case it gets canceled, new things get canceled. So announcing renewals before the season even premieres is a signal to viewers that this is a safe choice they're making in deciding to get to know these characters and this story.
So it's good publicity in that way. And in a broader sense, it's yet another way to promote the show prior to premiere. Whether the reviews are good or bad — and whether or not you believe that reviews influence general audience behavior — these renewal announcements are a second bite at the PR apple. There will be news stories at various sites, and trending posts across social media. People who may not have heard of a show before might see one of these and both find the idea interesting and assume, "Oh, if they already ordered more, it must be good."
And in many cases, these "renewals" are just public confirmation of a decision that was made months ago — sometimes when the series is picked up in the first place. With shorter seasons, often featuring actors who are in demand either for movies or other shows, you need to lock people in as early as possible. The news is just saved for this moment for the aforementioned PR hit. People are much more likely to pay attention to this kind of thing when a show is about to premiere than when it's a long time until it will be available to watch. I've done plenty of interviews over the years with producers of shows that aren't officially renewed, who talk casually about already being at work on the new season.
Gallery Books
It's a good trend. Way back in the caveman days, I would get emails from readers declaring that they would never watch another show on Fox, or NBC, because that network had canceled too many of their favorites. I would gently reply that if you boycott every network that cancels good shows, you will very quickly run out of networks to watch. Even when we got into the era of the cable revolution, HBO still canceled Deadwood, FX canceled Terriers, etc. And the streaming era has become pretty ruthless about darlings like GLOW and Mindhunter. You're going to be taking your chances no matter what. It's just a bit easier to take those chances when you know going in that you'll get at least two seasons out of it.
That's it for today! What does everybody else think?
