Various and Sundry

Questions of Quality and Quantity in Prestige TV

So now that summer is over, including that show with the dragons, you may be wondering, “What shows are actually coming back this year?” Jen Trolio and Caroline Framke over at Vox have answers. This is one of those perennial Vox pieces I’m glad they do every year, because there’s a lot of shows. In fact, some might say there’s a glut of shows out there, which has led to occasional questions of whether we’re…

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Various and Sundry

Recommended Reading: The Long Tail Wags

Vox’s resident media prognosticator, Todd VanDerWerff, picked up on something in the CW’s recent renewal announcement: renewing low-rated Crazy Ex-Girlfriend may represent a new way of evaluating –and valuing– TV shows in today’s media landscape. All three of my longtime readers will recall how I am avidly interested in the future of TV. For those of us non-full-time filmmakers, knowing all the viable paths to sustainably scratching our creative itch is of intense interest and constant…

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Various and Sundry

Cable Defeats Cord Cutters?!?

On my Twitter feed, I frequently use the hashtag “#futureTV,” because I’m borderline obsessed with how TV is transforming, both in terms of how it’s getting made and how it’s being viewed (or “consumed” if you want to be extra biz-speaky). So this past holiday weekend, while our Netflix connection seemed to strain under the weight people travelling to Stars Hollow, I re-read Todd VanDerWerff’s piece in Vox about how Netflix –and cord cutting in…

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Producing

More on Peak TV and how TV Production is Changing

So, one of the things I obsess about, when my synapses are not otherwise engaged is what the future of TV looks like and how TV programs are being made. So I was very interested in a pair of articles I read this past January about the idea of “Peak TV” as well as one earlier this month about the potential production pipeline problem HBO may have with new shows. And of course, I enjoyed…

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Producing Various and Sundry

As the Dust Settles on a TV Season

I tweeted out Vox’s rundown of shows that were renewed, canceled, or ended via the Team J twitter a couple weeks ago, though it’s since been updated further. Last Tuesday, they not only updated that list, but Todd VanDerWerff did a great rundown of the various reasons a show might get canceled. Within that explanation comes a great overview about how TV shows make money. For those of us looking to understand the economics of making…

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Various and Sundry

Recommended Reading: The Rise and Fall of HBO?

I’ve been thinking about “Peak TV” and such from a couple of articles I talked about back in January. Of course, one of the issues with TV or any cinematic development is that you need something of a development pipeline. As Walt Hickey’s article on FiveThirtyEight last week goes into, that might be one of the biggest issues facing HBO right now. Apparently, Game of Thrones may be shorter lived than some of us hoped.

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Various and Sundry

Star Trek Fans: Rules of Acquisition

This is the sixth entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. No worrisome things today, just more information on the new Star Trek series, set to arrive at CBS’s new “All Access” channel in January 2017. Over at a site called Trek Core they’ve summarized a speech CBS president Les Moonves gave to CBS investors recently at a conference. (For those interested,…

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Various and Sundry

Star Trek Fans: A New Hope?

This is the fourth entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. “A new hope?!?,” you Trek partisans cry. Yes, I went there. But stay with me, because although the tomfoolery (Garth-foolery?) of the Axanar lawsuit continues, CBS went ahead and announced the showrunner for their new Star Trek TV series: Bryan Fuller. Yes, someone who has both written for Star Trek and led…

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Various and Sundry

TV’s Golden Age… or too much of a Good Thing?

Last week, I made passing reference to Television’s “Golden Age,” an often-invoked, but still rather unofficial designation for the TV-viewing time we find ourselves in. Yes, I know some people still want to cling to the 50s being a golden age, but while my adoration for some skits of Your Show of Shows and episodes of I Love Lucy is second to none, please. TV is currently rocking. One of the side effects of this embarrassment…

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Various and Sundry

Star Trek Fans: We Are Probably Doomed

I meant to post this earlier when the Star Trek Beyond trailer dropped, but holiday obligations meant I needed to stew with the implications for days. And alas, amid the season where I should be counting blessings and giving thanks, I have some geek-related dread. (I should note, that I am counting blessings and giving thanks as one might expect. Nothing Trek-related could be that impactful unless I was somehow involved in the creation of…

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