Posted on

Just to add to the whole complexity of what covid has done to to filming. I know someone who was cast on a show for HBO in Jan, was filming the pilot in Mar and had to rush to finish everything because of how fast the shutdowns happened. They just got news that the show went from pilot, to picked up, to miniseries because of covid. Because they were tied to this series they couldn’t audition for anything else. HBO had to pay them to keep them along with all the crew and prod staff. 1/

2/3 Now times this by all the different shows the various streaming services have and all of them are paying hundreds of thousands for people that aren’t doing anything. For a business perspective I get it, personally it sucks and pisses me off, but I do understand which makes it suck more. It is better for them financially to cancel all these first seasons shows that while popular aren’t a big phenomenon and pay for the shows that they know will create hype. ST, Witcher, The haunting, etc.

3/3. My friend actually had to make the decision to leave the HBO series in order to audition for other things. The best thing that can hopefully happen is that the right people are paying attention and remembering the talented people both in front and behind the scenes. P.s. I happened to get the opportunity to meet Sydney earlier this year and she is badass and powerful in RL as she appears on the show. She also plays w/w in Fear the walking dead and might come back in the new spinoff FYI, 🙂

Hmm, interesting, and yeah, I think there were guesses that this would be what was happening when the first wave of previously renewed shows that would have been shooting now got cancelled instead. It did seem like it had to be a matter of costing just to delay, but…I dunno, can’t there be ANY other way around that? These are unprecedented times. Some of these shows won’t even tape for months yet. It bodes ill for their expectations of conditions in the US if they think that even into next year this won’t be resolved.

I remember there was a US soap, um…..Days of Our Lives. Last year it released ALLLLL its cast from their contracts and people were like, uh, is this a cancellation?? But it turned out they’d just shot way too many eps ahead and instead of keeping all those people around as they waited, they released them. I know it’ll be tough to renegotiate everything again later, but I’d prefer something like that and I feel like so would a bunch of the actors/writers. 😡

And oh, awesome! I had seen the gifsets of Sydney in FTWD but apparently it was pretty brief so I never got around to it and just spent the whole of Helstrom wondering why she seemed so familiar and then finally looked up her name and was like OHHHHH. I’m definitely going to keep an eye on her in the future!

Posted on

I saw an article that said that Netflix has cancelled 18 shows this year and 14 were on the first season. Like honestly why even bother making the shows if you’re not gonna renew even the successful ones.

That is a lot! Although of course there are extenuating circumstances, but that’s a bunch they didn’t really give a second chance to. However, I have heard that they treat these first seasons the way other networks do pilots, so this is just a one-off expense for them to see how a show is, except they can see its full first season and how it performs instead of just judging that one ep on their own. But yeah, some of these shows WERE good and successful, so…

And another anon:

Netflix was cancelling awesome successful shows even before the pandemic but yet they have enough fucking money for their fucking dumbass white ass movies

Lol, yeah, those movies. Have I watched any except Bird Box… But of course they’ll say that the budgets are still lower and they’re still successful for that cost. That’s the other part of this, that audiences are also generally more receptive to things that lack diversity. I’d love to have a one of their cheesy m/f romcoms for f/f, but it’s these straight movies that make easy money.

And another anon:

I didn’t try to get this attached to Away it just kinda happened *Sigh* and now I’ve been sad literally all day.

Aw, bud. At least we did get that first season, as I was saying above, on other networks it could have been just the pilot, if it was made at all. Even if there isn’t more, the goal of the season, getting to Mars, that was accomplished, we saw them all bond and get over their differences. I’d say to distract yourself by watching something else but that’s just opening yourself up to more possible heartache. I have scifi recs but this was more a family drama…maybe enjoy what there is Lost in Space (even if the final season of that gets retroactively cancelled)?

And another anon:

Yeah Away shot in Vancouver.

Ah, thanks for the confirmation! Then yeah, even with the way that would have helped, they still couldn’t continue…damn.

Posted on

As someone who works in TV I can understand why Netflix are doing a cull of things. Even if they had a successful first series. The logistics of everything now is a nightmare. On top of the extra expenses for Covid testing/PPE/Cleaning equipment. There is ensuring correct transport that will keep passengers and drivers safe (all which have to be approved by a Covid supervisor). Additional rig days to ensure each department gets space to work (which is fine for light entertainment shows and just about manageable for sitcoms) but high end dramas? That’s so many additional days. If you add in potential weeks for shut downs which might occur if they have someone test positive, this then adds on an extension of costs for equipment and space. It wouldn’t surprise me if Netflix, Apple TV etc have sat down with a list of shows and gone through which ones they are willing to spend the money on. If shows are easy to make normally, then they will more likely be higher on the list to film during times of Covid because of the potential for them to cost less than a show which would normally require a larger budget. America is also very unionised so everything there takes longer anyway. So it wouldn’t surprise me if shows that film outside of the USA (take Warrior Nun as an example) get priority of those within the USA. It wouldn’t surprise me if shows also get filmed in the UK/Europe instead of the US

Okay, first, asks can be this long (again)?? What the.

But oooh, thanks for your expertise! From what I saw, that does sound spot on and it is…so much. I get it, and yet. Doesn’t make it feel any better, right. And can’t they just delay some of these? Shorter seasons?

Oh, and I think Away actually did shoot in Canada, but not sure if that’s relevant. Hopefully WN will be okay with the Europe cases rising again.

And another two anons:

Covid just fucking ruins everything huh

I know COVID has caused a lot of big shit but we can be mad at the small shit too right? Like all the shows it’s ruined for example

Lol, I was thinking that too, like of course, it’s actually killing so many and separating families and costing jobs (although these are jobs too), is it okay to be mad about this thing, since it’s mostly just us being upset at not getting certain shows… But I think we can be, we’re not saying it’s anywhere near that level of awfulness, it’s just one of many ways in which this has sucked. 😡

And another anon:

Lu and Mei deserved better

Truly, whatever else the show had going on, that was such a unique little gem in the middle, something I’ve legit never seen in American media, adult professional Chinese wlw who clearly cared about and understood their culture. There are so few at all, but they’re either teens or like, action-centric. And the more I look at characters played by actresses like Michelle Yeoh and Ming-Na Wen, the more I appreciate a character from that mold.

But representation aside, they deserved an explicitly happy ending!

And another anon:

I doubt they would have even had to like do a lot of COVID stuff? Just cut down on the mission control scenes and quarantine the five actors together near the Mars set?????

Btw that anger was directed at Netflix but you

I can’t remember if I said not or but in that last ask so I wanna clarify Netflix not you

Lmao, this made me burst out laughing. How dare you! But no worries, it was clear in context anyway. But from what the first anon above said, I do think there are a whole lot of very specific expenses that they can’t just can’t skimp on. And it wouldn’t be just the five actors, but all the crew that would interact with them. 

But yeah, I don’t think there’s any kind of exact algorithm they’re using, it’s not as if they judge profitability in the same way other businesses can, they’re at the point where interest doesn’t automatically translate to new subscriptions because so many people have subs already, so it’s a whole thing to figure out what actually is a success and what isn’t. It may be more a gut feeling thing, what they think is better rid off or not.

And another anon:

The showrunner of Away said he had a COVID plan already in place and that Away worked perfectly for it ugh didn’t even let him try

Do you mean Jessica Goldberg? I feel like I read something like that, but I guess it was still too expensive to them, and of course, she was still a showrunner trying to get her show renewed, anyone in the same situation would say the same.

And another anon:

Away was one of my fave shows ever *Sigh*

Ouch. Sorry, bud. Brave of you to get invested in a Netflix s1…though I guess it seemed like a safe bet at the time! Still pretty shocked at it, tbh. But at least they ended on a high note, overall? You could imagine the mission going well, with of course the technical and emotional hiccups, and then back on Earth as celebrities.