Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Monday, April 10th, 2023

To spoil or not to spoil

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, April 10th, 2023.

TO SPOIL OR NOT TO SPOIL
For the record, I had no idea what was about to happen in last night's episode of Succession. For reasons that I have never quite understood, the fine folks at HBO would apparently rather have the cast of their shows perform the episodes live on the streets of Hollywood than provide me with screeners. Aside from the fact that they are only network that has this problem, it leads to some unintentionally funny moments. Like a few months ago when a request from me for screeners of one of their shows led to being accidentally included on an email thread between publicists there who were debating whether or not to respond to my request along with some discussion assessing my relative position in the world of entertainment journalism.

I mention this not to complain, but to reveal upfront that I likely don't have the best attitude towards the network right now. But regardless of that, I still think they weren't treated fairly last night by some of the Hollywood trades and entertainment press.

It was a pivotal episode of HBO's Succession and something big happened. And literally the minute the episode ended on the East Coast, some publications were posting stories with headlines that told readers exactly what happened and to whom.

Look, I don't want to get into the now over-examined question about how long someone should wait before posting a fact which would spoil the episode for viewers. But I would suggest that if we were all somehow able to agree on the length, it likely would be longer than 60 seconds.

And then there is a special place in hell for the social media person at Vulture, who spent the evening retweeting portions of that publication's episode recap, which not only spoiled the event, but then discussed everything leading up to it.

I understand the need to juice traffic and importance of SEO. I live and die by my traffic numbers. But I don't think it's unreasonable to give people at least a few minutes to catch up on the episode before you tell them what they missed.

Of course, some of my fellow journalists disagree with this approach, such as Polygon's Peter Volk, who suggests people who don't want to be spoiled should just get off the internet and leave it to people who want to discuss the show in real time:

While it feels bad to get spoiled on something you were looking forward to watching, it’s not, in fact, fair to insist other people stop discussing it because your schedule is different. You are not the main character of the internet, and the rest of online does not owe it to you to be mum about something just because you haven’t caught up yet. It is your responsibility to keep yourself spoiler-free, not everyone else’s.

I agree that we should not be shaming people into not discussing things on social media in real time. But that is very different than publications literally putting the spoiler in the freaking headline. That's just being an asshat and there's not much of an excuse for it. And for that matter, if viewer numbers for this season of Succession are to be believed, more people watch the show after the episodes air than view it live. So maybe it's a good idea to not go out of your way to annoy people when it is very easy to not do so?

SOCIAL MEDIA MATTERS IN WAYS YOU MIGHT NOT REALIZE
I write a lot about all of the things that impact the TV and streaming business that just aren't on most people's radar - including a lot of industry journalists. There are so many pieces of data floating around, so many ways to use social media as an (imperfect) predictor of audience engagement.

Lucas Shaw's Screentime newsletter has a really thought-provoking interview with Chris Meledandri, who is head of Illumination, the company behind the new The Super Mario Bros. Movie. His company arguably has maybe the best theatrical track record over the past 15 years and while lots of people in the industry were wondering whether his new movie would open strongly, Meledandri says he was pretty confident going into the opening weekend:

We saw some interesting things over the last 8 months. We were looking at search and the correlation between releasing something connected to the movie that we felt was particularly dynamic and observing the response through search.

As in you drop a trailer and look at Google search volume?

We were doing it with every step. The trailers, the first exposure to a one-sheet, what happened with big paid media moments. If you were just looking at search correlation and comparing that to other massive titles, you would have been less surprised by these results.

Have you always done that?

We’ve been doing it in a more focused way over the last three movies. It keeps getting more and more sophisticated as a tool. Inside of Universal there’s a group run by a guy named Chris Massey who focuses on this.

My first thought is that I want to interview Chris Massey. But more generally, it's an indication of how differently some media companies view the marketplace as compared to many seasoned journalists. I suspect that none of the reporters tasked with cranking out a pre-open "how will the movie do?" think piece ever thought to use Google search numbers as a data point.

TWEET OF THE DAY

COMING THIS WEEK ON ALLYOURSCREENS
Here is a rundown of the stuff I'll be reviewing this week on AllYourScreens.com. Titles with a * are ones in which I've received a screener and will have a review posted ahead of the premiere or when the embargo expires. Those not marked are ones I'll review after their premiere, generally within 24-36 hours.

I also have three interview posting tomorrow. Two from Rennervations and Brett Waterman from Magnolia's series Restored.

Tuesday, April 11th:
*Am I Being Unreasonable? Series Premiere (Hulu)
FBI True (Paramount+)
Yonder Series Premiere (Paramount+)

Wednesday, April 12th:
*American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing (Netflix)
It's All Right! (Todo Esta Bien) (Disney+)
*Rennervations Series Premiere (Disney+)

Thursday, April 13th:
*Cell 8 Series Premiere (Viaplay)
*Florida Man Series Premiere (Netflix)
Obsession Series Premiere (Netflix)

Friday, April 14th:
Gold Rush White Water Spring Premiere (Discovery)
*Radford Reborn Series Premiere (Speedvision)
*Personality Crisis: One Night Only (Showtime)
*Phenomena (Netflix)
Queenmaker Series Premiere (Netflix)
Queens On The Run (Netflix)
*The Last Thing He Told Me (Apple TV+)

ODDS AND SODS
* Far be it for me to suggest TBS has become a network where creativity goes to die in the most painful way imaginable. But the network announced today the new series I Survived Bear Grylls is premiering Thursday May 18th. Co-hosted by comedian Jordan Conley, the show "gives rookie survivors the chance to prove their mettle at the hands of one of the world’s leading adventurers. Along the way, a few lucky leading contestants will have a chance to earn the hard-fought reward of a seat on the larger-than-life MTN DEW-branded throne." Um, that would be a no from me.

* The HBO Original stand-up comedy special John Early: Now More Than Ever is premiering sometime in June. Because announcing a more specific date in mid-April would be crazy.

* Former TV Guide EIC Noelene Clark has apparently joined the new Jimmy Finklestein media start-up The Messenger.

* NBC has picked up both Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU for full 22-episode seasons next year. The network also picked up Law & Order: Organized Crime for another season, albeit for 13 episodes. The network has also picked up another season of Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med. Feels like it should be time for Peacock to order the inevitable series Chicago Law.

WHAT'S NEW FOR MONDAY:

Agent Hamilton Season Two Premiere (MHz Choice)
Below Deck Sailing Yacht Season Premiere (Bravo)
CoComelon (Netflix)
Darcey & Stacey Season Finale (TLC)
Dead Mount Death Play (Crunchyroll)
Luxe For Less Season Premiere (HGTV)
Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke's Mansion (Crunchyroll)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU FRIDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.