Queuing up some comfort viewing
In these apocalyptic times, staying home and queuing up some comfort viewing seems like your safest bet. Chris Schulz reports.
If you’ve pulled out your old DVD collection and started bingeing on your favourite TV shows lately, no-one would blame you.
If so, you might be wondering why some seasons of TV shows have some very odd numbers of episodes in them.
Breaking Bad’s first season has nine episodes. Heroes’ second has 11. Prison Break’s third has 13 episodes, when the rest of them have 22 or more.
The Office’s fourth season, the absolute peak of the Emmy-winning hit comedy based on Ricky Gervais’ UK original, has just 19, when 30 were planned.
There’s a very good reason for this. At the end of 2007 and into 2008, 12,000 members of the Writers’ Guild of America walked off the job in search of better pay in what turned out to be the industry’s longest strike.
At the time, America’s TV industry came to a standstill. Many shows ended their seasons early. Late-night talk show hosts wrote their own material, or stopped airing altogether. The Golden Globes were cancelled.
Film-maker Michael Bay reportedly wrote his own script for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on the fly, a film so bad it has just a 20 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The popularity of reality shows, which didn’t need scripts, skyrocketed.
Until this month, the results of that writers’ strike – a few lost episodes of television and the unfathomable popularity of The Bachelor – is about the most damaging thing I can remember to rock the entertainment industry. Aside from a few concerts being cancelled because of low ticket sales, the occasional box office bomb, or an outcry over a TV show being axed early, things keep moving. Music keeps being made. Bands keep touring. TV shows are funded. There’s always a new movie to catch. The Bachelor will be back for more synchronised scandal.
But here we are, in the midst of absolute chaos. Covid-19 has ripped the heart out of not just the television industry, but all entertainment industries. It’s made the writers’ strike seem microscopic in comparison.
Over the past few weeks, hundreds of tours have been cancelled – many of them in New Zealand. Major music festivals, like Coachella overseas or Homegrown and Pasifika at home, have been postponed or axed. Big-budget movies like the new Bond film No Time to Die and A Quiet Place Part II have shifted their release dates by months.
TV shows have also been affected. John Oliver broadcast from a different building and without a studio audience for the first time in seven seasons. Despite having the biggest budget of any television production in history, Lord of the Rings has shut down in Auckland for a minimum of two weeks.
Rolling Stone reports the combined costs could climb well into the billions.
After the summer we’ve had, maybe this shouldn’t seem like such a big deal. We’ve just had one of the biggest ever for music, with more stadium shows, festivals and tours than ever.
I took in as much of it as possible, from Tyler, the Creator’s stunning comeback from his New Zealand ban at a headlining show at Nelson’s Bay Dreams, to Lizzo’s perky first performance here at Fomo Festival, and my favourite ever Laneway festival thanks largely to locals Marlon Williams, Bene and JessB.
Alongside that, I took in great gigs by Pixies, Wiki and Alice Cooper. I saw Aldous Harding play
a typically spellbinding show as part of the Auckland Arts Festival.
I also saw Tool twice. Yes, I was at the show now famous for having one of the first confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.
Right now, all of that seems like a dream. Depending on how long the limits on crowds of more than 500 are in place, it seems likely that many of the shows scheduled over the coming months might not happen.
There are, obviously, more important things to worry about. You already know the warnings: wash your hands, stay home, wash your hands, put your overseas holidays on hold. Wash. Your. Hands.
Things might seem helpless. Certainly, it’s going to be bad for some.
I feel for those working behind the scenes in the music industry – the lighting technicians, the stage gurus, the sound engineers – who are out of work for the foreseeable future. I feel for the local musicians who rely on touring as their main source of income.
But there are positives. Some are adapting, swapping touring for hosting livestreams from their bedrooms. Dance dude Diplo is promising nightly livestreams of a Major Lazer performance from his house. Clear out your dining room, set up a strobe and get into the groove. I am so up for other acts to follow his lead.
There are things you can do in the meantime. Buy a band’s T-shirt from their online store. Join a new streaming service. Rent a movie and stream it from Apple TV or Lightbox.
Save up your money to buy concert tickets when they’re on sale again.
Order vinyl online, have it shipped to your house and blast it at full volume. If you can, support the funds set up to support those in the industry who are out of work.
The music will return. So will the movies, and the TV shows, and, eventually, the concerts. We just have to wait, and be ready for when they do.
In the meantime, who doesn’t need another excuse for a Breaking Bad binge?