Welcome to Clearing Out Our Queue, where we share TV news and recommendations to keep you filled in between episodes of our podcast. Every Friday, Adina and Kara will keep you in the loop about what’s going on in the entertainment world, and what you should be watching.
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SPRING FORWARD
Broadcast TV continues to return with plenty of old favorites coming back - this week is big for fans of ABC procedurals, plus a few streaming hits, as usual!
Premieres this past week included Season 7 of 9-1-1, Season 20 of Grey’s Anatomy, and Season 7 of Station 19 on ABC, Season 3 of Girls5Eva on Netflix, The Girls on the Bus on Max, and Manhunt on Apple TV+.
TV NEWS
The critically acclaimed dramedy The Bear has been renewed for a fourth season, before the third has even aired. This is a strong show of faith, and the fourth season is reportedly being filmed along with the third, which is in production currently.
Despite its recent reputation for canceling shows, the “Netflix Effect” is still very real, rescuing shows cast off by other platforms. Netflix’s large subscriber base offers a much more viable chance for certain shows to reach an audience. Rolling Stone breaks down three variations of this effect, from shows rescued from another platform that gain new seasons on Netflix and do very well (such as Cobra Kai), shows that are added to Netflix long after they air but have a resurgence (like Suits), or shows that are added while they air, with Netflix availability bolstering the audience for seasons as they debut (like Breaking Bad and Schitt’s Creek). For better and worse, Netflix’s influence over the current TV market is strong.
Ty Burrell of Modern Family fame will star in a new comedy pilot for ABC. The series is titled Forgive and Forget, and it will focus on Burrell as a fun-loving father who reconnects with his adult son following a severe diagnosis.
Snowpiercer has been saved, renewed for a fourth season at AMC. The dystopian sci-fi drama was previously canceled by TNT as one of the many casualties of Warner Bros.-Discovery’s massive content write-offs last year. (Maybe this is move to make the “AMC effect” happen?)
Netflix head Ted Sarandos gave a partly-heartening, partly-ominous reflection on AI’s place in entertainment, in the wake of the writers’ and actors’ unions battling for protections against it during their strikes. Sarandos said, “I think that people will try to use AI to do shortcuts for the human experience, and the truth is, there is no shortcut for the human experience,” he added. “It would not be good for the business to have movies and films spit out of an AI.” However, he added that he’s interested in exploring AI on the audience end, for users to generate their own content… so, hard to know what to trust.
KARA’S CANCELLATION CORNER
Since Starz is not a platform I pay for (save for when Adina subscribed in Minx’s short tenure on the streamer), I have never seen a lick of any of the shows in the Power franchise. However, I felt the need to bring my corner back this week because of the news that Power Book II: Ghost will be ending with its fourth season. Of course shows run their course, but this news comes right on the heels of Jeff Hirsh, the CEO of Starz detailing that companies must plan for how much more expensive shows get in their third and fourth seasons, mainly because it comes with pay raises for actors.
Coming off of a summer where both the writers and the actors were on strike, partly to do with wages when doing work for streamers, comments like these don’t feel right. Not many shows last beyond two seasons nowadays and it has become abundantly clear that is in part due to saving money with what would have been pay raises for cast, as well as the showrunner. Hirsh went on to add that the best way to combat this is to have newer projects in different phases of development for when those older shows get more expensive. In one sense, Starz seems to be making good on that promise since it was also recently announced that a new Power spin-off is in development: this one being a prequel centering around Tommy and Ghost.
Things are certainly still shifting in the industry and it sometimes feels it’s anyone’s guess what will come, though clearly things are still being greenlit and moving forward. It’s hard as a fan of something to get invested, knowing that executives have been quick to pull the plug lately before a show can make it through more than a couple of seasons. For the moment, I’m thankful for shows like The Bear and Abbott Elementary that are getting the chance to grow and really build an audience.
CLEARING OUT OUR QUEUE
Or, what we’re watching this week.
Kara: I watched some more Happy Endings this week. I also finished season 5 of One Tree Hill. Very excited because I think the infamous heart transplant scene might be coming up (IFKYK).
Adina: I dipped my toes into Shogun, which I’ve heard is fantastic, but didn’t have the right headspace to fully take it in yet. I’m having a great time with Season 2 of New Girl, and hyped for Season 3 of Girls5Eva; haven't started it yet, though, because I’m rewatching the first two seasons now that they’re on Netflix.