Instead of the mediocre and poorly written revival we got...

I think Survivor had to pivot at some point and, if it didn't, it probably wouldn't have lasted as long as it has. There's only so many times you can watch someone starving, struggling to find food, unable to build a decent shelter, and having to weather the elements before it becomes old hat. The personality conflicts with the new casts and the game elements that serve to drive them help to keep it fresh.

At first glance, this show reminds me of like a modern-day The Nevers, except with a much more limited powerset.

It definitely has a strong philosophical undercurrent in it, so I'd agree it's closer to The Good Place in that regard.

I think you can't really approach murder mystery series with Reddit in mind. When you have literally thousands of people that can collaboratively theorize in one place, it's very likely people are going to come close to figuring things out. Seems a little futile to try to work against that, because you don't want to write something that is so convoluted no one was ever going to see it coming. It never feels well-written when the answer just comes out of nowhere and isn't something anyone could've predicted.

Write for the people who aren't on Reddit after every episode trying to figure things out. Even as big as Reddit is, they're still a comparatively small minority.

I've always thought it is important to have that material around to remind us of where we've been and how far we've come. There's value in having those reminders. Sanitizing the past just makes it easy to repeat those mistakes. It also makes it easier for people to stand in the way of progress when the progress made in the past is erased.

That's the thing. I don't think Friends would be made any more or less careful today than it was in the '90s. Even then, there were absolutely topics they weren't going to touch or jokes they couldn't make for fear of backlash. Racial jokes that would've been perfectly acceptable a couple decades ago would've had the NAACP up in arms (rightfully) and sponsors pulling out. I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't have a few jokes over the course of the show where there was a debate if it'd be okay to have in the script or not and concern over how audiences would react.

People act like everyone is so sensitive and that "comedy is dead!" now, but the reality is we're just sensitive about different things as understanding and acceptance changes. There have never been jokes that are not seen as crossing a line to some of the audience, and that's a large part of the reason networks have Standards and Practices departments. It's just that whatever is the group that is the common butt of jokes ceases to be once people realize they're, you know, people with feelings, and the people who told those jokes don't want to move on and find something new to joke about, so they whine (sometimes on their sold out comedy tours) instead of finding new material.

And, of course, the whole "comedy is dead" thing is complete nonsense, something provable given how much comedy is readily available on every major streaming platform, written by talented individuals who know how to still be funny even if certain topics become taboo.

When that show debuted, it was definitely a little frustrating to hear people talk about how awful it was that they were gearing the Muppets more towards adults... as if that wasn't how they were initially. One of the earliest Muppet specials was titled Sex and Violence, because they wanted to make it clear that it was geared more towards adults.

Though, I suppose, it just goes to show you how Disney has bungled their ownership and how much they frequently misunderstand them.

If I recall, they did eventually shift from Miss Piggy's show being a talkshow to a variety one, but most of the focus of the show was still on the behind-the-scenes stuff. Had they used that format and included sketches, it might've worked well. I think it was just too far away from what people expected of a Muppets television show.

They're certainly much more vibrantly colored, which I have to assume is a deliberate design choice. If the new characters are clones that were created in the past ~15 years, it makes sense that they would have a different fashion style than the clones who were around in the early 2000s. Them having a new batch and old batch of clones together could definitely make for some interesting storylines if that's the route they're going.

Todd Kauffman, the character designer on Total Drama Island has admitted he was told to "design a show that resembled Clone High.

It's a little funny how this article is about a show being "derailed" by the 2007-8 strike, yet I think most viewers of Friday Night Lights would agree that storyline was the weakest in the show even before the strike. Sure, they may have lost the opportunity to resolve the story the way they hoped, but it's hard to see how they really would've been able to conclude it in a way that changed people's opinion of it. I don't think people were really clamoring for five more episodes of Landry being afraid he was going to prison.

I realize this article is trying to explain some of the effects of a strike and why it should be avoided, but the strike didn't lead to a "bizarre season" of FNL, just cut an already "bizarre season" short.

Fair point. I hadn't considered it from that perspective.

Should really be interesting to see how a strike impacts streamers like this regardless, though. Back in 2008, Netflix and Hulu were the only games in town, and they were both still several years off from producing their own original content. Now, there are countless streamers that will have to contend with this, and it's much different than networks on television who didn't really have to worry about people cancelling subscriptions.

Netflix likely has enough in the can to weather something like this since they release new stuff practically weekly as it is. They also already license a lot of foreign programming. But streamers like AppleTV, Peacock, Paramount+, and even Disney+ generally are only fueling subscriptions by having a couple big shows running at a time. Give it a few months like how the 2008-9 WGA Strike ran, and these services are going to have a very difficult time justifying keeping people subscribing, and I doubt a shift to reality programming like what we saw during 2008-9 is going to be enough, particularly in the case of AppleTV.

Wouldn't surprise me, and it's really not a bad move. AppleTV doesn't have a ton of original content to begin with, and in terms of comedy, they already have Ted Lasso, Schmigadoon, and The Big Door Prize to carry things until summer.

Given how close to the original release date it is (4/26), it seems odd they'd just be realizing now that it needs another three months.

It wouldn't be the first show to unexpectedly announce the upcoming season as the final season right before it releases, claim they wrapped things up, and then have all evidence point to that being highly misleading, at the very least.

I'm really hoping that's not the case with Succession as it'd be a huge shame to have a fantastic show end like that. As others have mentioned, Jesse Armstrong has previously said this wasn't a show he wanted to go on for more than four or possibly five seasons, so it is plausible this is where he just decided to end things. I'd be lying if the whole WBD merger and the myriad of cancellations it's resulted in doesn't concern me, however.

I'll still watch it all the same and just keep my fingers crossed that we get a fantastic finale to close out the show.

I suppose both things can be true. Just because you don't plan for a show to go beyond a certain number of seasons doesn't mean the network agree (I believe Supernatural is an example of this). Since, I believe, he's said 4-5 seasons, perhaps he was under the impression they were getting the fifth season, then found out they weren't due to the WBD shakeup.

I suppose we'll find out in a few weeks, but even if this is true, it wouldn't surprise me if they were still able to cobble together a satisfactory ending even without the season initially being planned to be the end.

Severance on AppleTV

>The most awarded movie in cinema history, EEAAOA... did anybody want that?

Exactly. This logic never stops to consider the other side of that. "Who wanted this!?" Yeah, because I'm sure there was a huge demand for a show about a billionaire's kids squabbling over his media empire or one based on the football coach that discussed soccer from NBC Sports commercials or the one about people whose home life can't remember their work life, but those are some of the best shows on television right now.

They really think we would've gotten those if networks were looking for some sort of popular consensus before entering development?

I suppose this isn't entirely surprising. The way they wrote Axe out was open-ended enough for his return, and I imagine that was intentional since he left due to his wife dying. Presumably, the writers were always hoping he'd come back, and now he's at a point where he wants to act again.

As someone who watched the show up until his departure, I'm glad to see he's wanting to work again as Damian Lewis is a fantastic actor, but I think my interest in the show ended when he left as the show was already on a steep decline and spinning its wheels anyways. I don't think I'll be returning when he does. Axe repeatedly outsmarting Chuck's legal maneuvers was already getting old a few seasons back.

This was the episode that will have me be really surprised if he doesn't get an Emmy nomination next year.

It's really baffling how frequently stuff I've already watched shows up on there. Netflix's whole design revolves around obfuscating the size of their catalogue as much as they possibly can. It's why they rotate categories and thumbnails as much as they do. But when I see like 5-10 things on my recommendations that are things I clearly already watched and rated on Netflix or it's stuff that doesn't have a great recommendation percentage, it just makes me think there must not be enough on Netflix for them to recommend to me that I will like.

It really seems deliberate too considering they get worse over time. I used to find Netflix's algorithm to be reliable. I frequently saw things I had previously watched (not on Netflix) and enjoyed and found a few things to watch specifically because they were on there.

Now, though? It's full of things I've watched on Netflix, already have on my watchlist (which shows I intend to watch them), and garbage. For the life of me, I don't understand how Netflix can have a system that rates how likely it is that I'll enjoy something, and then put things rated 50-60% on my recommendations. It's like they're specifically trying to get me to watch things they know I won't like.

Even "random within a genre" would've been far more useful than what they had. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a specific type of movie, but I don't think I'm ever in a mood of "Oh, I'll watch whatever!" I don't think the feature even differentiated between a television show or movie which was even dumber.

It was just a lazy feature with no thought.

Oh yeah, my Google Chromecast had a movie I watched on Paramount+ show in my "Continue Watching" queue for like a month, and I couldn't figure out any way of removing it. Even making sure I played the movie to the very end didn't fix it.