Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Friday, October 7th 2022

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, October 7th, 2022.

For those of you who are new here (and there are a number of you this week), the Friday newsletters tend to be shorter. There's less news and honestly, at this point in the week everyone needs a break.

See you Monday!

ADVENTURES IN MARKETING (THE QUESTION)
I write a lot here about the challenges of trying to market so many new and returning streaming shows at the same time. 

So with that in mind, I am kicking off a new Friday feature: "Guess The Streamer." Here are ten shows premiering a streaming service next week. Identify which streamer each title is premiering on. I'll have the answers at the bottom of the newsletter:

1) Island Of The Sea Wolves 
2) High School 
3) Rosaline 
4) I Love You, You Hate Me 
5) Shantaram 
6) Love At First Lie 
7) The Watcher 
8) Martha Gardens 
9) Dark Glasses 
10)Spirit Rangers 

INFLATION'S IMPACT ON PRODUCTION COSTS
I've heard stories from people on the production side of the industry who have seen their business become much more complicated due to increasing prices. This piece in today's Variety takes a comprehensive look at inflation's impact in the U.K., and it's not a pretty picture:

Juggling talent, crew and commissioner requirements, it is increasingly producers who are finding themselves having to make up the shortfall. Wynne said he has heard “horror stories” about production companies going into shoots knowing they’re going to lost money on the project. “As an indie, we feel squeezed in the middle,” he explained. “Broadcasters are telling us they haven’t got any more money and freelancers are telling us they can’t work for the rates that they were working for [previously]. So it’s us in the middle, that I feel that are going to be mostly hit because there isn’t additional budget… And so we are left having to foot that bill.”

It sounds as if it's a similar situation here in America and these financial crunches are going to have an even bigger impact as the industry looks towards a possible writer's strike. Everyone except the biggest names are struggling and when people are desperate, they can be unpredictable.

SPEAKING OF DESPERATE
As someone who runs an independent web site, I am familiar with the financial pressures that come with trying to grow revenue. But there are some things that I have refused to do, even though they do work to a modest extent. Things such as posting SEO-clickbait stories with headlines similar to "Where can I stream <insert title people are searching for right now>.

On the other hand, not every site can resist and hey, we all do what we've gotta do to survive. Still, I was a bit surprised to see these clickbait-ish inserted into the mix on the front page of The Wrap:

HOW 'MYTHBUSTERS' HELPED A WRONGLY CONVICTED MAN PROVE HIS INNOCENCE
I was always a fan of Discovery's long-running series Mythbusters and I know a lot of teachers used episodes of the show as a teaching aid. But this story from the Innocence Project reveals how seeing an episode of the show helped free a wrongly imprisoned man:

The episode, “Hollywood on Trial,” which originally aired in 2005, sees the show’s hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage attempt to reproduce famous scenes and commonly used plot devices from Hollywood films with the goal of ascertaining their scientific validity. The pair and their team investigate whether a person can break down a door with four types of locks, whether a sinking ship — like the Titanic — can actually create a whirlpool, and whether a lit cigarette can really ignite a pool of gasoline.

That final point was of great interest to John Galvin, who at that point was about 21 years into a life sentence for allegedly starting a fire that killed several people. He was 18-years-old at the time and while he had eventually confessed, multiple people later said the confession had been literally beaten out of him by local police:

When Mr. Galvan asserted his innocence, Detective Switski beat him, Mr. Galvan said. Through the walls, his older brother Isaac listened helplessly to the detective’s yelling and John’s cries. Since then, several other people have testified to being tortured by Detective Switski and the other detectives who coerced confessions from John and Mr. Almendarez. Detective Switski also threatened John, telling him he would face the death penalty and end up “laying next to” his late father. Eventually, John couldn’t take it anymore and agreed to give a confession that was completely fabricated by the detectives to end the abuse.

When Galvan saw the Mythbusters episode, he saw the team prove on camera that the way police claim the fire had started was scientifically impossible:

In his cell, a 39-year-old John watched as the hosts of MythBusters struggled repeatedly to ignite a pool of gasoline with a lit cigarette, despite fervent attempts. Based on the ignition temperature of gasoline and the temperature range of a lit cigarette, the show’s hosts had initially hypothesized that a lit cigarette might be able to ignite spilled gasoline as they had seen on TV and in movies. But after several failed attempts to start a fire, including rolling a lit cigarette directly into a pool of gasoline, the team determined it was highly unlikely that dropping a cigarette into gasoline could cause a fire.

This is such a crazy (and extremely sad) story. We live in such a crazy world sometimes.

ODDS AND SODS
* Keanu Reeves has exited Hulu’s limited series The Devil In The White City, sources close to the project have confirmed to Deadline.

* Dancers at a topless bar in North Hollywood have received approval from the National Labor Relations Board for a union recognition election, a move officials said could make them the only strippers in the United States represented by actor's equity.

ADVENTURES IN MARKETING (THE ANSWERS)
And here are the answers to this week's "Guess The Streamer":

1) Island Of The Sea Wolves (Tuesday, Netflix)
2) High School (Friday, Freevee)
3) Rosaline (Friday, Hulu)
4) I Love You, You Hate Me (Wednesday, Peacock)
5) Shantaram (Friday, Apple TV+)
6) Love At First Lie (Wednesday, MTV)
7) The Watcher (Thursday, Netflix)
8) Martha Gardens (Friday, The Roku Channel)
9) Dark Glasses (Thursday, Shudder)
10)Spirit Rangers (Monday, Netflix)

WHAT'S NEW FOR FRIDAY:

Here's a quick rundown of all the new stuff premiering today on TV and streaming:

Batman: The Audio Adventures (HBO Max)
Blue Bloods Season Premiere (CBS)
Catherine Calls Birdy (Prime Video)
Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes (Netflix)
Derry Girls Season Three Premiere (Netflix)
Dollhouse (Netflix)
Fire Country Series Premiere (CBS)
Ghost Brothers: Lights Out Season Premiere (Discovery+)
Glitch Series Premiere (Netflix)
Habla Loud (HBO Max)
Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show (Apple TV+)
Hellraiser (Hulu)
HGTV Urban Oasis Special 2022 (HGTV)
iHeartRadio Music Festival (The CW)
Kev Adams: The Real Me (Netflix)
Luckiest Girl Alive (Netflix)
Man On Pause Series Premiere (Netflix)
Next At The Kennedy Center Series Premiere (PBS)
Oddballs (Netflix)
Old People (Netflix)
Saving The Manor Series Premiere (HGTV)
Secrets At The Inn (LMN)
Significant Other (Paramount+)
S.W.A.T. Season Premiere (CBS)
The Graham Norton Show Season Premiere (BBC America)
The Lincoln Project (Showtime)
The Midnight Club Series Premiere (Netflix)
The Mole Series Premiere (Netflix)
The Problem With Jon Stewart Season Two Premiere (Apple TV+)
The Redeem Team (Netflix)
The Truth Is Out There Season Premiere (History)
Tiger & Bunny 2 (Part Two) (Netflix)
Werewolf By Night (Disney+)

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

SEE YOU MONDAY!

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