EVENT TV: What makes a show get Massive? 

So, has anyone seen Undone on Amazon prime? "No"

Yeah basically I accidentally doxxed myself again and needed to edit it (thank you person who pointed it out)

I just know that when doctor who finally drops "space babies" in may it's going to be the biggest event in television history

I was thinking earlier today after watching the latest walking dead spinoff, which after waiting week by week feels like it lends itself better to a binge. That the next step for this era of television is breaking seasons of shows into chunks and dropping them weekly or fortnightly. If they took the data on the average binge session and decided "Right thats around 4 x 45 minute episodes, we've got 12 planned lets release it fortnightly over 6 weeks and have a major cliffhanger on each 4th epsiode" then they will recapture some of that phenomenon that used to happen while people theorise for two weeks but also guarantee at least 2 or 3 months of subscription for the people that only subscribe to catch up on this one show everyone is talking about. I work so far from entertainment though that I could be talking out my arse. Thanks for the video

Fun story. I started watching Game of Thrones cause of every other show/social media talking about it or referencing it, and as I was watching S1, I got spoiled on the "Red Wedding" scene by not co-workers or family, but by, of all things, Robot Chicken

This is why I was so happy that The Last Of Us was released weekly. It became a quite literal weekly for me as I would go round to my friend's house to watch every new episode in a big group. There would also be plenty of water cooler conversations in the office the next day, even though most of us had played the games.

I think Line of Duty was event TV in the UK

Since you’ve brought up death as an element to event tv makes me realise why Doctor Who hasn’t been event TV in years. In the past the shows event tv moments have either involved character death/tragedy or the formula of mystery box storytelling they rely on all the time. Something that neither the 2022 or 60th specials really had & why the initial buzz round 13’s era fizzled out over the course of series 11.

The 2024 Super Bowl broke the record for highest viewed broadcast in American history, which also knocked the MASH finale out of the top 10, but the MASH finale is the only non-Super Bowl broadcast in the top 20.

The first 'event TV' I remember being a part of was Lost. I still think fondly of the show, although I haven't rewatched it since it's original airing. When I began to sour on event TV was Dexter. When in a water cooler moment, someone spoiled the big death of Season 4 _as_ I was on my way home to catch up. The last big event TV show I recall was Breaking Bad. Everyone I know was talking about. Since then, as you say, streaming shows don't quite have the same level of engagement. Mentioning GoT or Stranger Things. Some will say they avidly watch every minute. Others will say _No._ Meanwhile a surprisingly large percentage will give option three: Never heard of it. It's funny you mention about death being a factor though. Because I think that is where The Walking Dead failed at being event TV. The source material is notorious for sudden, mass culling of the cast. The show didn't have the stomach for that and I think suffered for it.

Love your videos man. I feel like I could listen to you talk about anything. You always make it interesting. Great work:)

This is truly event RU-vid video

Great video as always.

Ooh yay I love stubagful :)

great video! sadly lost my netflix subscription due to the password purge, but my family wanted to keep on watching squid game, because of the popularity. i also used to watch the masked singer on FOX when the first two seasons were out because people were talking about on twitter as well.

Comfy stubagful

3:57 This is pretty accurate.

Stuart. Any chance you will review the 2021/22 miniseries Station Eleven?

lt's funny that you mention Traitors as the only weekly reality-style series you still watch, because the only weekly reality-style series l've watched in years is the dutch series "Wie is de Mol?" (Who is the mole?, as in traitor). That series works a little different tho: 10 strangers have to do tasks to earn money as a group, but one of them is the mole, who tries to sabotage tasks. Every episode ends with everyone having to do a test with questions about the mole (Was the mole in group A, group B or group C during the second task?, is the mole male or female? etcc). The person who has the least correct answers has to leave the show (or they "die", in terms of your analysis). The twist compared to your british Traitors, however, is that neither the contestants NOR the audience gets to know who the mole is before the finale episode. l feel like that enhances the watercooler conversation factor of this show by tenfold, because it really invites people to overanalyse everyone's behaviour and discuss who is (or definitely isnt) the mole. Since covid they started doing the yearly reveal-episode live, so people can gather around the park where they film it and really feel the hype, which l think is a really cool concept for a reality tv show like this :]

I’m an animated show person. Any time there was a Nickelodeon or a Cartoon Network movie, I and every American kid tuned in immediately. Also, Breaking Bad wasn’t watercooler TV?

Things tend to go full circle. I can see streaming services introducing scheduling. They already release some shows on a weekly basis and there are even ad breaks now that you can’t even skip without paying more money. We’ve been sold a dream, but really we’re just getting the same old thing.

I really struggle to get in to tv shows. Still on series 4 of Vikings and Breaking Bad, have been for 8 years. The entire list of shows in this video I only know but cultutal impact

3:18 l feel like it's actually more poignent than that,, people would specifically not talk about a modern "event tv" level episode/show because they wouldnt want to spoil people who havent watched it. You kinda touched that point later on though

Ah, so THAT'S the video that went missing from my Watch Later yesterday

The thing is about traitors makes it fantastic event television is that it was designed to really appeal to two groups that usual never meet: The *Jazz hands* drama viewers, who are purely there to watch people get into cat fights, and the gameplay analysts who make whole graphs dedicated to the logical chain of information and discuss game theory over the emotions that the players feel. It's ingenious in my opinion, most shows that appeal to everyone usually end up pandering to no one, but Traitors found a concept which managed just that.

3:07 recently I got hyperfixated on community and seeing that you're partway through watching it made me happier than it should've do you think you'd ever do a video on community?

Great video. It is a very good point, I think theres something of a self fulfilling prophecy when it comes to the bigger hits on streaming, they become event television because everyone has watched them, but they are only event tv because everyone has watched them. I've now settled though for 'close knit' event tv. I.e, if I know all my friends are watching something, then it still sort of feels like event tv because we'll all be able to talk about it. But day to day you're right, most conversation about TV now is.. have you seen x? Traitors was brilliant though, I really hope we can get more hits like that.

If you like The Traitors, you should watch Survivor, it goes hard. Too bad the reboot of the UK version last year flopped in the ratings and got cancelled after one season.

Has anyone watched Blue eye samurai?

What I wrote last time....

Why’d you have to reupload?

That god damn pitch document for Stranger Things has ruined my life! Every producer wants to see some sort of strange art-piece/concept deck that requires a degree in Graphic Design.... just read the scripts man :(

simpsons final episode might be event tv. I dunno

Stu - LOST wasn’t disappointing. I implore you to revisit now the cultural zeitgeist has well and truly passed us by. It’s amazing.

The shortlist was terrible

I've seen Game of Thrones in 2023 and saw it's popular discourse from an outside non spoiler prospective, and I always found it weird that people hype up a show for the shock value of character deaths. Wanting to be ThE nExT GaMe Of tHrOnEs always kills my interest after seeing Game of Thrones. "But why try to be Game of Thrones, everyone hates that now." Ben Yahtzee Croshaw. A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones has a worse influence on fantasy than Watchmen did with superheroes because people always take the wrong lessons from what makes their grim inspiration good. The Netflix Avatar The Last Airbender wasn't that good because of trying to be ThE nExT GaMe Of tHrOnEs. The original Avatar The Last Airbender had so much better world building and characterization than Game of Thrones without having to castrate and assault it's characters. Why can't shows try to be the next Hilda instead? I'm surprised there isn't more discourse around the Netflix show Hilda with the kill count going from 0 to 439 in season 2. You know that saying ''It's the journey not the destination" when it comes to story endings, that saying should also apply to character deaths. When re watching my favorite Better Call Saul episode Point and Shoot, I realized I loved the episode for how the charters journey ended in that episode instead of character deaths happened. Game of Thrones problem is that it over sell the suspense that anyone can die and a story can’t rely on the threat of characters dying forever. Someone has to live to tell the tale if a fictional story isn’t going to focus on the afterlife. If everyone in Game of Thrones died in a Red Wedding event, now what? The reason the Storm Trooper aiming trope exist because if antagonists kill the protagonists, now what?

When you were talking about reality TV for water cooler talk I was thinking in my head it's going to be The Traitors isn't it and yep it was I've seen every English language version of it which I guess is something else to talk about (I know I have) also when it first came out I was with most of the people saying I'm not into reality TV but The Traitors has captured my interest. 😂

I feel so weird with this. I don't care at all for any of these events TV shows talked about. I just don't know why people like this stuff. I feel it's all melodrama and it doesn't work on me.

How does a British person make a video about Event-TV and not ONCE mention The Stolen Earth/Journey's End???

Crazy to imagine the closest thing to the huge TV events of old is the worldwide hype of the upcoming Bluey special episode this month.

how dare you bring up game of thrones

I had to stop watching halfway through...I haven't seen Squid Game yet... 😅

The Walking Dead is another example of water cooler TV, a show that can play fast and loose with characters viewers become engaged with. Putting aside the water cooler factor, it’s just nicer to have the show come out an episode at a time because you’re only putting aside half an hour to an hour a week to catch up rather than binging more than a handful of episodes within a day or two to avoid spoilers.

Why would you talk to people at work? ew.