A Note from the Editor

Mansha Daswani

Does anyone have a good method for keeping salient plot points and character backstories in your head as you wait years for your favorite OTT premium series to return? I’m in desperate need of an alternative to the let-me-just-rewatch-every-season approach. When it’s been two/three/four years since you last spent time with a group of characters, how else are you supposed to fall back in love with them and get up to speed on what they’re about to face? I realize it’s not a great method, given how very much there is to watch these days. Inevitably, getting lost in a rewatch means you get left behind on the things you want to watch—and that list does seem to get bigger by the day.

“I’m going to foolishly make another prediction, which is that 2022 will be the high watermark” of scripted TV output, John Landgraf said during FX’s TCA press tour session. “In other words, that it will mark the peak of the peak TV era.” According to FX Research, there were 357 scripted series across broadcast, cable and streaming in the U.S. that launched through the month of June, up 16 percent from the same time last year. Last year’s total of 559 scripted shows marked an all-time high. “I think it’s obvious that this year will bring a new record,” he added.

Indeed, Covid limitations, rising budgets and a squeeze on space and talent notwithstanding, there is a lot of really fantastic content out there, as you’ll see in this latest edition of the TV Drama Guide.

But the sector does have some burning questions to contend with: Are subscribers going to tire of streamers’ itchy cancellation fingers? Really, why invest time and effort into a show only to learn after you’ve fallen in love with it that it’s not returning? Are we going to see greater flexibility on OTT platforms’ part now that subs growth does appear to be slowing, and they need more financially prudent ways to invest in great content? Are creators over their shows being binged so quickly that they fall out of the conversation in a week? And more pressingly for me, am I ever going to catch up on all the shows I want to watch?