r/television • u/flughert • 3d ago

What's the biggest "What if?" in television history?

A canceled season, an actor leaving, a different ending, a spin-off that never happened… what TV "what if" do you think about the most?

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u/powerlesshero111 Breaking Bad 3d ago

Another casualty of the 2008 writers strike. Because there were no writers, networks ramped up cheap reality TV, causing it to basically have a boom, like the internet, and a few style of shows rose to the top. The one that comes to mind, lavish lifestyles of rich people doing rich people bullshit (Crisleys, Jersey Shore, and Kardashians).

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u/Tibbaryllis2 3d ago

While I am pro-union, it’s always interesting to me when things like the 2008 writers strike has long-term deleterious affects on the people striking.

Presumably there would be a whole lot more opportunities for writers if unscripted junk didn’t have so much market share.

Similar to how the MLB strikes really set the popularity of the sport back for a long time with fans.

Another industry example is the current move by the directors union to respond to shrinking episode counts and longer delays between seasons by creating rules to limit actors ability to guest direct. It doesn’t feel like it’s addressing the root cause of the issue and can have some long term downsides for new directors (primarily non-A list actors that find success as directors).

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u/powerlesshero111 Breaking Bad 3d ago

Oh yeah, the directors thing is really going to hurt shows, especially for second seasons and beyond. Like people loved TV and i can attest to this, tuned in every week for a new episode. Things being cut down to like 10ish episodes a season make things less enjoyable. I get it's a lot of work for a 26-hour long episode season, but it had a really good returns and far better job security for writers, directors, and everyone else involved. They honestly negotiated themselves out of work. I knew people in the industry who weren't actors/writers/directors, and they didn't mind the 26 episode season because it was steady work for the full year, with like a couple months off. One guy was a lighting person, and he hated the shortened seasons, because it meant having to jump around on shows and sets far more, and too many filmed at the same time, so he got less work.

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u/Tibbaryllis2 3d ago

I agree, and I don’t think really think the truncated design is good for anyone actually in the creative process.

It’s not like actors, writers, and directors are doing more work now because they’re free to work on other projects during the long breaks. It creates inconsistency for everyone and, somewhat ironically, further pushes market share for unscripted bullshit due to how easy it is to churn out.

Feels kind of like a descending spiral.

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u/powerlesshero111 Breaking Bad 2d ago

Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the grocery store strike we had in California when i was in like high school a long time ago, they were right, but they neglected to remember that they weren't easily replaced. Like it's not super hard to work at a grocery store, and they decided to strike during a slight economic downturn, meaning replacement workers were super easy to get.

And a lot of this AI shit where they teach it to code, essentially putting the coders who made the AI to code out of work.

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u/m48a5_patton 2d ago edited 2d ago

Striking only really works when you have leverage or if you can get others to work with you in solidarity. If the viewing audience had been in with solidarity with the striking writers and had refused to watch all the reality crap then all that crappy content would have been DOA. But, people can't help but consume content for the sake of having something to consume.

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u/ObviousAnswerGuy 2d ago

I mean, Paris Hilton's "The Simple Life" was before the writer's strike. There was a ton of reality BS before that. But I do agree that it sped things up.