Yeah, I think my “pump out” is really the thing. The barriers to large orders are much higher in a smaller market, and naturally emerge when shows have sold well enough in global marketplace to justify the investment (and when it’s a procedural, as you note).

This is the problem when you move out of the country. (I was like "Is something like Murdoch running longer seasons now?" but then felt like I remembered it being closer to the 13 it was doing when I was in the country.)

60 minutes vs. 30 minutes is the first hurdle. (They've said that, given they have zero scripts, they're gonna be early 2027 at the earliest).

First and foremost, how does The Beachcombers Wikipedia page not even have an episode list?

Second, as ever, we need to throw a "except for Beachcombers" caveat onto so many industrial logics of Canadian television.

Third, which one is the Shane and which one is the Ilya?

(Note: "low budget" is a relative term in this case. I think Canada would say the #HeatedRivalry budget was healthy. Based on how HBO has talked about the license fee they're paying versus the return on their investment, the U.S. would say "low budget.")

(FWIW, Tierney has said that he's open to bringing in other writers in order to ensure the show is ready in time to go into production this summer/fall. It's the burden that's easiest to share without compromising the auteurism. #HeatedRivalry)

I've been fascinated by how much the discourse around #HeatedRivalry fights against the terms of its production. The show people love was made as a bespoke fan service auteurist low-budget Canada-made production. Making it bigger, or faster, or collaboratively? A threat to all that.

I don't say this to diminish how bad that workplace was, but I would argue a huge part of why we perceive of it this way is because of how it was valorized and how its showrunners were lionized. The problems there are systemic of TV.

I have to believe CAA held out for at least SAG or Globes.

* My lawyer would like me to note, in case of medical distress, that I did not legally mandate for Lily to consume $40 worth of concessions. I didn't even make her go to the theater! She did it for #Journalism. #StrangerThings

WTA and ATP. King among us.

Emily, the sheer scale of this caveat made me LOL after the simplicity of your first post. (I don’t think it’s a crazy take, but the very problem of the finale is how it has to pretend the show’s bloat didn’t swallow this core whole).

The hair’s been there all season but I have to believe she taped a photo up in the mirror and practiced the face for the finale, 100%.

Per Deadline:

"Due to the lack of guild clearances, tickets could not be sold for the Stranger Things series finale. The way around booking the event in theaters was to have all exhibitors charge patrons a concession voucher for a reserved seat (i.e. $20 at AMC). Exhibition keeps all the cash."

I'm not saying that everyone needs to agree with Hollywood Accounting and Box Office reporting's commitment to it, but suggesting its ideological function runs deeper than the internalizing of broader industrial hegemony within trade journalism is spotting the wrong jig.

But with Marty Supreme, the asterisk returns us to our conversation around The Marvels and Wonka back in 2023: Christmas releases multiply their "opening weekends" in the Christmas-New Year's corridor, meaning $27m is "lower" than other debuts but is a signal of strength for an Oscar contender.

Asterisks work in multiple ways. Trade press famously asterisked the $48m opening of Sinners based on trends for films in its genre (which proved false, it held amazingly) and trends for Black-led films overseas (which proved true, it struggled).