This year has been incredibly rough for the people who make our favourite TV shows.
From May 2 to September 27 of 2023, the Writers’ Guild was on strike, which meant no TV was being written. From July 14, 2023 to November 9 of 2023, the Screen Actors’ Guild was on strike, which meant no one could film (in the US). And we generally (already!) are looking at that saying “Wow, look at 6 months of striking!”
That’s actually not a really accurate description.
Who ‘Struck’?
If we talk about declared, legit, strikes, yes, we have WGA and SAG-AFTRA. But that wasn’t the only drama going on. Those two struck because of labor disputes, as I’ve talked about before. While all that was going on, though, there were some other, smaller, fights taking place.
The Visual Effects Union (aka VFX) was also pushing for unionization. In August, the middle of the strikes, Visual Effects crews at Marvel Studios joined the VFX union. What I think a lot of people didn’t know is that since 1977 or so, the VFX industry has been mostly non-union. What happened then? Oh, this little movie called Star Wars. One might have thought it would have been folded into the unions earlier, but that didn’t really start to happen until COVID.
With everyone working from home and having to do more work for their studios, the climate for VFX and post production was drained. Overworked.
Turnaround times don’t apply to us, protected hours don’t apply to us, and pay equity doesn’t apply to us. Visual Effects must become a sustainable and safe department for everyone who’s suffered far too long and for all newcomers who need to know they won’t be exploited.
Isabella Huffman in a statement to Hollywood Reporter
The other thing to keep in mind is that even if some other unions didn’t strike, their contracts are up for re-negotiation, including a number of TV related production groups. And some people aren’t actually covered by unions! Reality TV workers aren’t in a union, for example.
What’s The Fallout?
Well, a lot of cancelations .. some loud, some quiet. All Rise seems to be a quiet cancel, while Disney+ went all HAM on pulling a bunch of shows (and removing them from streaming … like Willow) as did Paramount (Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies still stings). The CW was going all weird and killing things anyway, with the sale, but some shows got a little more room than others. Hulu? We will never know how she met the father. Oh. And this little show we all adored? A League of Their Own. I remain salty about that one.
And now that the strike is over? The Rookie: Feds got canceled. So did The Good Doctor‘s spin off! But 9-1-1, which Fox dumped? ABC snagged.
This is scary, since right now not only are these shows being cancelled, they’re being removed from their streamers. When Freeform axed Single Drunk Female, they pulled the shows while Hulu was still running ads for it!
Basically the fallout is going to be these series simply vanishing. We don’t get DVDs anymore, so we won’t be able to save them and watch them on our own.
When Are What’s Coming Back … Coming Back?
Writers have been working for about a month. At this point we have some backlogged scripts, but we have to build sets and get actors back into things. Normally, TV has already begun the 2023-24 season. It’s pretty clear that we’re only getting a 2024 season at this point. Normally we get 20ish episodes? Expect ten.
And those new shows you were looking forward to? Expect some of them to be 2024-25, if at all (see The Good Lawyer).
What’s Next?
In three years, expect to do this all over again. That’s right, these contracts are for three years, and given how hard the production companies are pushing to AI everything, it’s going to be worse. The AI technology we see today will be as different as the cellphone of 2004 was to the first iPhone. So many fields are going all-in, and none seem to be thinking about the impact on humans.
Do you want to watch an entirely AI generated show? An AI writes the script, picks the actors, uses their saved images and voices to produce the show, adds in the VFX, and turns out a product.
Sounds like a nightmare to me, and I’ve watched more low-quality Web Series than is safe for my health.
So my advice for ‘next’? Be ready for greed to the problem as it almost always is, and pray your shows aren’t on the chopping block.
