The comparison seemed right. These are two adult-skewing, prestige drama takes on generations-old family audience properties. And further to that, they are both positioned to restore integrity t…

Read more

That reads to me as an obvious hit for HBO and I’m sure all involved are very happy that it drew the audience size that it did. Critics seem into it as well, with the show registering 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and 71 on Metacritic.

And it’s weird, because I was of the understanding that superheroes were over with and audiences were “fatigued” by the genre. Meanwhile Spider-Man: Brand New Day just passed $2 billion at the box office, registering 90% on RT and 66 on Metacritic.

“Superhero fatigue” has once again been proven to not really be a thing. What has probably passed us by is the idea of shared universes of characters propping up the box office of films that audiences aren’t that keen on, though, to be level-headed about that, it was only really Marvel that had much success with that as a strategy.

I think it’s important to consider that the conditions that have kept superheroes popular as a genre for the past hundred years across movies, TV shows, comics, radio serials, novels, video games, and beyond have never really changed. People feel powerless in a world that can feel complicated and scary… there’s tremendous wish fulfilment fantasy seeing costumed heroes trying to make the world a better place.

On a tangent… should I check out some Green Lantern comics?

Good question.

A byproduct of the success of shows like this is that is does drive some viewers into comic book stores looking for books featuring these characters. I’d warn prospective Green Lantern readers that you won’t really find many Green Lantern books that share a similar spirit as the TV show – the only comparable era in the comics is a run from the mid-70s and that is a pretty dated read these days unless you’re super into comics.

But if you’re keen, maybe something to check out is a recent book series called Human Target. You might know Human Target from a two-season 2010 action adventure TV show starring Mark Valley, or the very-quickly cancelled 1992 version starring Rick Springfield.

The 2021 Human Target comic was written by Tom King, one of the co-creators of the Lanterns TV show and does what Tom king does, which is to deconstruct long-established comic book characters. With Human Target, he shifts the main character Christopher Chase into a detective noir-coded story (it really doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about Human Target) where he is butts up against a number of DC superheroes, including a prominent and shocking role for Guy Gardner (a Green Lantern character we saw in the Superman movie last year and will again be seen in Lanterns in the coming weeks).

The vibe is aligned pretty well with the Lanterns TV show.

News Desk

• Heated Rivalry won Program of the Year at the 2026 TCA Awards, while Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay was the night’s biggest winner with three trophies. Read: Deadline

• Beef star Steven Yeun will lead and produce Pagans for Netflix, a supernatural drama about a widowed father whose young daughter turns out to be something far more sinister. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Netflix and AMC have greenlit Bannerman — their first co-production — a Shane Black-penned spy drama based on John R. Maxim’s novels, about a covert operative who convinces elite assassins to retire to suburban Connecticut. Interestingly, Netflix will handle distribution outside the US, with AMC sharing distribution in territories like Australia and New Zealand. Read: Variety

• Prime Video has renewed YA drama Sterling Point, from creator Megan Park and starring Ella Rubin, for a second season after a No. 1 global debut. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• HBO Max’s The Pitt has added seven recurring guest stars for its third season, including Chris Diamantopoulos, Hannah Ware, and Brent Sexton. Great – another opportunity to load up IMDB to figure out exactly where I know Chris Diamantopoulos from. Happens every time that guy is on screen. Read: Deadline

• Sega’s Golden Axe animated series, with Matthew Rhys voicing grumpy battle dwarf Gilius Thunderhead, premieres on Paramount+ on 16 September. Read: Deadline

• The legendary sketch series SCTV is finally coming to streaming, arriving on Netflix from September 1. Read: ScreenCrush

• Seth Meyers has launched A Closer Look: Out of Office, a video podcast with writer Sal Gentile revisiting the news during Late Night‘s seven-week summer hiatus. Read: Deadline

• GTA 6 leaks have worsened for Rockstar, with fresh footage suggesting the leaker has access to a playable build of Grand Theft Auto VI — confirmed by the copyright strikes Rockstar has filed on the videos. Read: Polygon

• July 2026 was the worst July for US console sales since the 2020 pandemic, with hardware spending down 29% as component-crisis price hikes bit — Switch 2 led units, ahead of PS5 and Xbox. Read: Polygon

• CBS will air Daughters of 9/11 on 11 September, a two-hour special marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks that follows two victims’ daughters in their decades-long search for justice. It has been 25 years… Read: Variety

Trailer Park

Yellowjackets returns for its fourth and final season on Paramount+ on Nov 20.

Line of Fire debuts on NBC Sept 21.

A family of law-enforcement agents from different federal agencies work cases together, until a conspiracy threatens their own safety and tests their loyalties.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story debuts on Netflix on Sept 17.

Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology turns to the 1892 Fall River murders and Lizzie Borden — accused of killing her father and stepmother with an axe — the first woman at the series’ centre.

The Terminal List returns for season 2 on Prime Video on Oct 21.

That’s the newsletter for the today.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of Always Be Watching.

Connect with Dan on Bluesky. Connect with Dan on Letterboxd. Connect with Dan on Linkedin. Challenge him on the NYT word game Crossplay. Email Dan @ alwaysbewatching.com or just reply to this email.

Since the launch of Paramount+ (and, to be real, CBS All Access before it), originals at the streamer have been pretty weak as an overall slate. I liked the work being done by Robert & Michelle King (The Good Fight and Evil), and there is certainly considerable success with the Taylor Sheridan shows (Yellowstone, Landman, etc). But beyond that, it’s been, politely, patchy.

When David Ellison bought Paramount, he brought in a new team who have been working away at overhauling the content strategy. It takes time to get a strategy and the people needed in place. It takes even more time to hear pitches and get projects up and into production. So, we haven’t yet seen the fruits of this labor. But, so far all seems pretty promising. Fingers crossed the merger doesn’t impact on their ability to commission some more interesting programming.

With the earliest of these shows working through production, head of originals Jane Wiseman has just given an interview with Deadline where there were some interesting comments that speak to the shape of what they are planning.

The female forward is in front of the camera, behind the camera, really getting women, intriguing them to come to the service and watch. And what was really exciting is that we just launched last spring The Madison and Dutton Ranch, which were from the Taylor Sheridan camp, but they over-indexed in women. So we felt like if you make shows for women, they will come.

Enter Discretion or enter Fear Not, that’s where we felt like if we could make shows for women but not alienate men; we want to make sure there’s something for everyone, and we feel like what was missing were those soapy character dramas. What I love about Discretion, just to pinpoint that one, when we first started, this was one of the first pitches that came in the door, and it was — I’m not kidding — it was a soapy female two-hander legal drama from Susannah Grant and Chandler Baker, starring Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman, and we were like, bullseye, let’s go.

With Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy both wrapping their final seasons in 2027, fans are obviously nervous about the future of Star Trek. Here she speaks about the hiring of exec Chris Parnell, who will be overseeing the franchise as part of his remit:

Well, it’s one of the reasons why Chris is here as the resident number one fan of the Star Trek franchise. And there’s so many people in this building, by the way, that are. It is our goal and it is our job to figure out what the next bounce of Star Trek is. We’re talking to a lot of writers, we are leaning on CBS Studios, and it is imperative that we figure out what the next iteration is in this franchise because it’s just too important. We also are in touch with Paramount Pictures, they have a Star Trek movie that’s in development.

It’s a no news, news sort of situation for the moment.

The article runs through each of the verticals that Paramount+ has been built on (the Sheridan shows, the Tyler Perry/BET productions, the Nickelodeon kids shows, etc) with commentary there.

Broadly, it read as positive, but there is a sense reading through it that despite there being a mandate to increase the quality of Paramount’s output, there isn’t a huge amount of actual investment being made there. It seems like a lot more of the same and some tweaks in philosophy. An indication of a budget not big enough, or is it too early to get into it? Likely a bit of both.

Australian TV mystery solved

Whatever happened to Alison Hurbert-Burns? It’s not a true crime docu-series. It is the question I’ve heard a number of times at industry events over the last few months.

Hurbert-Burns was the head of content for Australian streaming service BINGE. She left the business early last year ahead of the purchase by Euro sports giant DAZN.

But since then, there’s been radio silence. Which was weird – she was a sought-after exec who, frankly, most of us assumed she would be working for one of the big international streamers by now heading up local content.

I worked a bit with Ali as a contractor a few years back producing Skip Intro, BINGE’s weekly podcast. She was great to work with and I rate her pretty highly. We caught up for coffee shortly after she left BINGE and her lip was very tight on what the next move was for her.

Today, the mystery has been solved. She’s launching a production company. She’ll be CEO of The Set-Up, teaming with entertainment company Made Up Stories. The word ‘teaming up’ is odd as it seems like this new venture will be the Made Up Stories team, only with Ali as its new CEO. Presumably, it mostly means a pivot for the company to no longer define itself so specifically as a production company focused on telling stories that champion women.

As per Deadline:

Respected Australian commissioner Hurbert-Burns will be CEO of The Set Up, with Papandrea and Hutensky joining her as co-founders, we can reveal. Made Up Stories execs Casey Haver, Jeanne Snow and Katie Amos will round out the leadership team.

The plan is for The Set Up to package premium series with IP, talent and financing out of Australia and sell them to broadcasters and streamers in the country and internationally.

It’s worth noting that Made Up Stories, as a production company, had some pretty serious runs on the board. The decision to pivot with Ali speaks to the potential all see in this partnership.

Made Up Stories is one of the better known production companies born out of Australia, and is behind the likes of HBO’s Big Little Lies and The Undoing, Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers, Prime Video Australia’s The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and Peacock’s The Good Daughter. On the film front, it produced The Dry, which is one of Australia’s highest-grossing pics, its sequel The Dry 2 and Addition, which released this year.

Anyway, cool news and you just know that I’ll be pressuring Ali to talk to ABW when the opportunity strikes.

News Desk

• A Los Angeles County study warns the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger could cost the region nearly 4,500 film and TV jobs and $2.78 billion in economic value over three years. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• MS Now, formerly known as MSNBC, will launch a $7.99-a-month subscription “membership” service in September built around progressive activism and 24/7 access to its linear channel — the last major cable-news outlet to go direct-to-consumer. Read: Deadline

• BBC Studios has strengthened its long-standing partnership with the Australia’s ABC with a deal comprising nearly 100 hours of premium first-window and fan-favourite Kids and Family titles. The deal kicks off with the new Zog series, which debuts here on Saturday and is a big topic of conversation in my house right now.

• FX has ordered Legends, a meta limited series reuniting Charlie Hunnam and his Sons of Anarchy castmates — including Ron Perlman and Katey Sagal — as fictionalised versions of themselves facing a real-world threat at a fan convention. Read: thefutoncritic

• Hulu has renewed Good American Family as an anthology, with a second season, this time dramatising the Lorena Bobbitt case, with Bobbitt herself consulting. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Apple TV’s Murderbot has added 25 guest and recurring stars for its second season — among them Steve Buscemi, Michael Sheen, Wanda Sykes and Patton Oswalt — alongside returning lead Alexander Skarsgård. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Netflix’s animated Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85 returns for its second season on 17 September, with 10 episodes picking up straight after the first-season finale. Read: Polygon

• Trigger Point returns to ITV1 for a fourth season on 30 August, with Lana Washington facing “the biggest terror attack this country has seen.” Read: Radio Times

• David E. Kelley has launched Live Migrations, a “slow TV” live nature series on YouTube that kicked off on 18 August with a multi-camera stream of Alaska’s sockeye salmon run, with whales and monarch butterflies to follow. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• After its first-ever Emmy nomination, the creators of the now-ended Adult Swim comedy Smiling Friends say the odds of a return are “not zero.” Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Jason Statham‘s action feature Mutiny briefly appeared in full on US Prime Video for an hour or two ahead of its Friday cinema release, in what looks like an accidental leak rather than a stunt. Read: Dark Horizons

• David Krumholtz has clarified he isn’t retiring but is putting his acting career on hold, after an earlier social-media post sparked retirement speculation. I’d think of this like the Steven Soderbergh retirement from filmmaking. Read: Variety

• Dutch children’s puppet show De Fabeltjeskrant is being revived, with 1,600 restored episodes heading to YouTube and a new CGI series set to be shopped to buyers at MIPCOM in October. Read: Deadline

Trailer Park

Best Medicine returns for season 2 on Fox this fall.

Dalliance debuts on Paramount+ on Aug 27.

A new Australian drama of love, lies and second chances, with an all-star local cast.

Untold: Mr. T: I Pity The Fool debuts on Netflix on Sept 8.

The Untold sports-doc series traces Laurence Tureaud’s rise to become Mr. T, one of the most unlikely and beloved icons in entertainment.

Earle Meets World debuts on Netflix on Sept 4.

Gen Z social-media star Alix Earle offers an unfiltered look at her life and blended family, capturing the real-time messiness of a young woman in transition.

Physical 100: Mexico is coming soon to Netflix.

The global competition franchise heads to Mexico, where 100 competitors — wrestlers, boxers, MMA fighters, Olympians and more — battle in a pre-Hispanic arena to find the most complete physique.

The Grand Tour returns with a new presenting line-up on Prime Video on Sept 4.

Betty La Fea: Uglier Than Ever returns for season 3 on Prime Video on Aug 28.

That’s the newsletter for the today.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of Always Be Watching.

Connect with Dan on Bluesky. Connect with Dan on Letterboxd. Connect with Dan on Linkedin. Challenge him on the NYT word game Crossplay. Email Dan @ alwaysbewatching.com or just reply to this email.

The Screen Currency 2026 report had a few key takeaways that caught my interest.

• Australians love local content far more than they watch it. 84% say access to local screen stories matters and 75% want to watch more, yet only 35% spend even a third of their viewing time on Australian content — and just 36% find it easy to discover local titles in the streaming environment.
  
  This is probably the least-surprising takeaway. There’s always a huge gap between what people say they want and how they actually behave. There’s our idealised selves and the awful people they actually are (of course, not you, constant reader… the other people).
  
  Part of the gulf, I think, is that when local programming resonates with an audience, it REALLY RESONATES. But a big problem with Australian content is that so much of it is purposefully made to be as big tent and bland as possible – Australia’s population size (and thus, potential audience size) makes betting on risky projects almost a surefire way to have a very short career.

• Screen and games added $11.1 billion to the economy in 2023/24 — bigger than the electricity generation or sport and recreation industries — with the sectors together directly employing 68,844 people.

• Local TV drama has richer shows but far fewer of them. Budgets have ballooned to compete globally (often matching and surpassing budgets for local films), yet first-release drama hours have roughly halved over 20 years — meaning fewer jobs and fewer viewing options. Streamers overtook all other investors in TV drama by 2025.

• Children’s TV has nearly collapsed. Local kids’ TV hours fell 42% after commercial free-to-air sub-quotas were removed, leaving the ABC as almost the only commissioner — it reached 11.1 million viewers with first-run children’s content in 2025, versus roughly 350,000 each for Seven and SBS/NITV, and zero for Nine and Ten.

• Bluey is a soft-power asset. It was the most-streamed show in the US in 2025 and the most-recognised Australian title internationally; broadly, 50% of audiences across eight priority markets say Australian content gives them a positive impression of Australia, and 50% say it increased their interest in visiting.

• Country of origin barely registers for gamers. 60% of Australian players are unsure whether they’ve even played an Australian game. This is not how we talk about Aussie movies and TV shows.

There’s a lot more deep dive detail and data you can go through at the Screen Currency website.

I’ve written a lot about my frustrations with Australian television in the newsletter and won’t rehash it here beyond just highlighting my two biggest ongoing concerns:

1. Australia calls for local networks and international streamers to fund local production, but the definitions around what that means is too rubbery. Are we producing local series to tell local stories, or are we doing it to fund the local screen industry?
   
   The result of this ill-definition is far too many Australian TV shows which have Americans or Brits as the lead characters, or are really cloudy in terms of location with a sense that they could just be set anywhere (the Melbourne-filmed All Her Fault is a good recent example of that… was it Melbourne? was it Chicago?). Meanwhile look at the success of, say, Colin From Accounts. That’s a series that has travelled well internationally that is quite clearly defined as being in Sydney’s inner west (although that train trip to Waterfall in season 2 was puzzling).

2. We need to do a better job at establishing a sense of what an Australian production is when selling it to the world. It doesn’t need to be as hyper specifically defined as Scandi series are (woollen sweaters and a dead female body in the woods), but it would help if we can create a focused appetite for Australian shows. The bigger the global audience, the better our funding options.
   
   When I consider Australian product, the thematics that appeal to me that I think define our shows and movies well is Australia’s earthy humanity and sense of humour. We need to do a better job at packaging that as an identity.

There was also the interesting comment about Bluey being used as a really successful vehicle for soft power.

Just over a year ago I wrote in the newsletter about the need for Australia to consider using content production for the purpose of soft power.

The only reason the US has any goodwill left from a global perspective is 100-ish years of soft power enforced through its screen production. We love America because of I Love Lucy, The Jetsons, The Golden Girls, Charlie’s Angels, The Sopranos, Sex & The City, Friends, Baywatch, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers, and The Big Bang Theory.

If Trump in the last week has radically shifted the world order, outside of the US we need to consider that we are likely about to see a cultural vacuum too.

It’s time for Australia to stop thinking about Australian TV as just telling our stories for local audiences or as engines for the local screen industry and instead think about how Australian TV can play a role in whatever role the country wants to start playing on the global stage politically.

And…

We need to be ramping up investment in local productions that are telling our stories in an authentic way (with Australian creatives leading it in front of and behind the camera). But it goes beyond just making the shows. We need to think of our TV as a handshake with countries we do want to forge stronger ties with.

And

Over the last few years there has been a discussion in Australia about forcing local content quotas onto international streaming services. I’ve long argued that we actually really don’t want international companies telling our stories. They’re never really authentically Australian and often will have US actors either playing Australians or will rely on that tired idea of “American gets mixed up in unexpected Australian stuff (usually crime or strange culture in a small town)”.

You can read that article in full here:

But you also might be interested in my follow-up piece where I suggest that instead of having international streaming services fund our stories (which leads to international stars in our shows and location-less local stories), we instead think about going all in on the political value of our shows as soft power and fund them through our military.

My thinking was/is that maybe instead of wanting the US-owned Netflix to tell our stories, we should be thinking about how we can weaponize our content to our benefit - is it entirely a silly idea to think that Australian scripted TV shows could be financially supported by the budget of the Australian Defence Force (and managed by expanding the existing international soft power media effort ABC Australia)? Yeah, I know - wild idea, but we live in wild times.

And just to save you looking it up, the annual ADF budget is A$55.7 billion, with $527.4 million expected to be spent next year on the Australian Submarine Agency alone. Spending a few hundred million on the creation of Australian dramas and comedies that can be exported globally to build and protect Australia’s stature in a potential vacuum left by waning US cultural influence… that seems like a good deal to me.

News Desk

• The US ABC has sued the FCC, alleging chairman Brendan Carr launched a “retaliatory campaign” of early license reviews to punish the network’s speech, in violation of the First Amendment. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Bill Rasmussen, who founded ESPN in 1979 as the first 24-hour sports network has died at 93. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Peacock is raising prices across all its plans for the fourth time in four years, with Premium climbing to $12.99 a month and Premium Plus to $19.99. Watching Murder She Wrote sure is getting expensive. Read: Deadline

• Steven Zaillian and Richard Price are reuniting a decade after The Night Of for Ghettoside, a six-episode Netflix crime limited series based on Jill Leovy’s nonfiction book. Read: Deadline

• Olivia Colman will guest star in the London-set sixth season of Only Murders in the Building. Read: thefutoncritic

• Aoife Hinds and Billy Howle will lead The Ministry of Time, BBC and A24’s six-part adaptation of Kaliane Bradley’s time-travel novel, now filming in London. Read: Deadline

• NBC News has handed Taboola exclusive control of all its programmatic display ad sales, extending a decade-long partnership as the ad-tech firm pushes deeper into the open web. Read: Axios

• Brett Ratner says his Prime Video documentary Melania is being expanded into a docuseries. How long until the glowing documentary about Natalie Harp? Read: AV Club

• Felicia Day has crowdfunded The Guild: Ren Faire’d, a reunion film of her cult web series, blowing past its goal in under four hours to raise more than $1.5 million from 8,600 backers. Read: IndieWire

• Kane Parsons has posted “Everything Must Go,” his first new Backrooms YouTube short since the A24 film became a surprise $390 million hit. Read: ScreenCrush

• Beth Behrs will guest on ABC’s Shifting Gears in season three as an ER doctor, reuniting with her 2 Broke Girls co-star Kat Dennings. Read: Deadline

• The Sims 4 will release Mean Girls and Clueless capsule kits on 27 August, bringing Y2K and ‘90s movie fashion to Create-a-Sim at $3.99 each. Read: Variety

• Australia’s ABC is consulting on a new First Nations content and strategy team after axing its 40-year-old Indigenous TV department, following the exit of Indigenous head Kelrick Martin. Read: IF

Trailer Park

Slow Horses returns for season 6 on Apple TV on Sept 16.

El Juicio debuts on Prime Video on Sept 11.

A powerful businessman’s son is accused of sexually abusing a schoolmate, igniting a fierce battle between two families — one father demanding justice, the other using his wealth to shield his son.

Best of the Best debuts on Netflix on Sept 18.

Two childhood best friends join UCLA’s competitive Bollywood-fusion dance team, only to find the road to the US championships is fiercer than they imagined.

Ludwig returns for season 2 on BritBox on Oct 13.

One Hundred Years of Solitude concludes with its grand finale on Netflix on Aug 26.

Turning Point: Generation 9/11 debuts on Netflix on Sept 2.

Twenty-five years on, the documentary explores how a single day reshaped a generation — from children who lost parents in the attacks to young Afghans and US Marines living with the fallout.

That’s the newsletter for the today.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of Always Be Watching.

Connect with Dan on Bluesky. Connect with Dan on Letterboxd. Connect with Dan on Linkedin. Challenge him on the NYT word game Crossplay. Email Dan @ alwaysbewatching.com or just reply to this email.

Today CNBC has this good article asking executives what they are predicting what TV looks like three years from now. Reporters Alex Sherman and Lillian Rizzo at CNBC ran the same survey three years ago, which makes this a pretty interesting exercise. Not all of the same executives are involved, so it’s not exactly 7 Up for media dorks.

A couple of answers I found interesting for one reason or another:

In three years, will we have hit a floor on cable TV subscribers?

Chris Winfrey, Charter Communications president and CEO: I think it’s going to decline dramatically, because the cost of free, over-the-air [retransmission] is now over $30 per customer for something that’s essentially free. But what you’re seeing already is all of that broadcast content and cable content is really all available inside of these apps, and it’s available inside of big streaming bundles that I think will develop over time, and I think that will include Netflix. When you really think about it, Netflix is essentially a big cable programmer that could end up being bundled together with the other streaming apps to provide more choice, more value, and more utility for customers over time.

A certain amount of bundling does take place already in the US and internationally, but I’ll never understand the fixation that pundits and executives have in predicting a predominantly bundled future. Over the past ten years we have seen a feature many people like about streaming services is the ability to chop and change services. People don’t want to be locked into these bundles, which I suspect most people realise is there for the long-term benefit of the streamers and not the customer.

What’s one thing that will become a TV industry standard that doesn’t exist today?

Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN chairman: Ubiquitous personalization. Personalization exists today, but I’m going to say three years from now, you’re going to see it pretty much everywhere, meaning networks are providing the right content to the right user at the right time, and you’re going to see content being promoted based on a user’s preferences, but you’re also going to see content being created and tailored to a user’s preferences.

Anjali Sud, Tubi CEO: I think you’ll see ads get way more useful and relevant the same way they have on social media. If you think about the experience today on television, it still largely feels like the ads are not personalized, and you can imagine a world where you can see such hyper-personalization that really — it gets to a place where what you see as an ad doesn’t even feel interruptive or like friction. It actually just feels like, wow, that was really helpful and useful, because you know me so well.

Of all the predictions, this feels the most dead-on. As AI becomes better integrated into streaming services, personalization across content recommendations and with the ads that are served will only improve.

It’s an obvious one for good reason.

There’s broad agreement that the biggest streaming services will probably still be the biggest in three years. What’s another service that you think will gain significant market share?

Debra OConnell, Disney Entertainment Television chairman: Look at Instagram’s recent announcement about TV formats. I think [it’s] likely a service that we’re not thinking of today, but it could be more broadly services that are here today and are expanding the capability of how they engage and connect with audiences, as well as expanding those experiences.

This, again, feels like one of these issues that executives are sure will happen, but it never actually does. Despite efforts by TikTok and Instagram to get deeper into different (re: longer) forms of video, there’s a certain rigidness that is baked into the experience of all of these platforms. They have trained viewers to thirst for the next video and the next one and the next one. Don’t expect big, broad changes in how these platforms operate. They work well for a reason.

I liked John Landgraf’s curt response to the question:

Landgraf: Do I really think that a streamer we’ve never heard of is going to be meaningfully competitive in long-form video three years from now? No, I don’t think so.

This week’s Cool-o-meter!

News Desk

• Hayden Panettiere, who starred as Claire Bennet on Heroes, headlined Nashville and played Kirby Reed in the Scream films, has died at 36 in South Carolina; a cause of death has not been released and no foul play is suspected. A child actor turned troubled star, it is fair to suggest the industry failed her. Read: Variety

• Paramount on Monday asked a federal judge to force State AG’s opposing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery to cover the costs of the delay created by their lawsuit seeking to block the deal. It is seeking a $1.88 billion bond from the 12 states. That’s a $1.88 billion dollar fee of Paramount’s own doing. Read: NYT

• HBO has renewed It: Welcome to Derry, its prequel series to Stephen King‘s It. Read: thefutoncritic

• CNN has its three prime-time anchors — Anderson Cooper, Kaitlan Collins and Abby Phillip — locked into contracts ahead of the Paramount takeover, complicating any attempt to reshape the lineup. Read: Variety

• From 24 August, YouTube will count a view the moment a video starts playing across all formats — likely inflating public view counts — while preserving the old measure as “Engaged views.” Read: The Verge

• Paramount+ is looking to reassemble the original Clueless cast alongside Alicia Silverstone and returning director Amy Heckerling for its sequel series. Read: Deadline

• Cary Elwes, Dianna Agron and Sam Riley are among seven new additions to the fifth and final season of HBO’s Industry, now filming in the UK. Read: Deadline

• Stephanie Koenig from the under-watched, but very good, English Teacher is joining Apple TV’s Platonic for its third season. Read: Deadline

• Warner Bros. communications chief Katie Martin Kelley is leaving for Netflix as VP of Communications for film under Dan Lin, the latest executive to exit amid the studio’s merger uncertainty. Read: TheWrap

• Webtoon Entertainment is moving into vertical microdramas, launching six one-to-two-minute “Short Dramas” — including Love Bites and Maybe Meant to Be — adapted from its popular webcomics. Read: Variety

Trailer Park

HBO has released this look at the weeks ahead of new drama Lanterns, following its debut yesterday.

A Different World debuts on Netflix on Sept 24.

Deborah Wayne, daughter of Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert, begins her freshman year at her parents’ HBCU alma mater and works to step out of their shadow and build her own identity.

The Diplomat returns for season 4 on Netflix on Oct 15.

Hollywood Arts debuts on Netflix on Oct 15.

Struggling actress Trina Vega returns to Hollywood Arts High School as a substitute teacher, clashing with and inspiring a new generation of performing-arts students while discovering an unexpected knack for teaching.

The Drop: A Snowfall Saga debuts on FX on Sept 8.

Set in ‘90s Los Angeles, the Snowfall spinoff follows Wanda and Leon as they fight to take West Coast rap mainstream while gang wars erupt and record labels move to exploit hip-hop for their own gain.

Scrubs returns for its second revival season on ABC on Sept 30.

Clean Up Company debuts on Prime Video on Aug 21.

Three friends — Raju, Swapan and Goldie — start a body-disposal business for a gangster in a border town, navigating gang rivalries and police investigations along the way.

Vigil returns for season 3 on BBC One and iPlayer on Aug 30.

That’s the newsletter for the today.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of Always Be Watching.

Connect with Dan on Bluesky. Connect with Dan on Letterboxd. Connect with Dan on Linkedin. Challenge him on the NYT word game Crossplay. Email Dan @ alwaysbewatching.com or just reply to this email.

There won’t be many people celebrating this anniversary, with the show oft-described as “short-lived.” But I did want to make mention of it because it is one of the very few times that we have seen genuine innovation in the talk show space.

The gimmick of David Tench Tonight was that Mr Tench was an animated TV host. He was computer animated, with the motion capture being performed by actor Drew Forsythe. My understanding is that this wasn’t real-time motion capture with Forsythe wearing a body suit with green dots while talking with his guests, but rather that his performance was added afterwards with guests talking with Drew in the room on some sort of TV screen.

Produced by Andrew Denton, a comedian/TV presenter who has been at the centre of most of Australia’s more innovative shows over the past 40 plus years (his own late night chat show Denton, was hugely impactful on me as a teen viewer), the show ran for just 16 episodes, with the final episode a compilation episode broadcast by network Ten on Christmas night of 2006.

The best comparison for the show would be the similarly animated 90s US talk show Space Ghost: Coast To Coast. That show was certainly more abstract and ambitious, providing a more artistically fruitful product.

Instead, David Tench Tonight was more the sort of product that was inspired more by the idea of seeing if it was possible, rather than necessarily having a creatively nourishing experience. Ultimately, you have to look at the program and ask how it is made better through the use of an animated host and I don’t think the show ever really answered that question satisfactorily.

Australian TV, because of the smaller size of the market and fewer opportunities to be experimental, so rarely takes a wild swing like it did with David Tench Tonight. And so, on its 20th anniversary, if you will allow me the indulgence of offering A Tench Thought, I think it’s worthwhile to celebrate shows like this that really did make a spirited effort to apply an emerging technology to liven up one of TVs oldest formats.

It is also worth considering that in recent years we have seen the rise of VTubers, virtual YouTube show hosts that are largely employing a similar creative effort to host talk shows and similar content. It’s not really a mainstream phenomena, but as the technology evolves and traditional media continues to erode, we’re likely to see higher profile productions using virtual hosts. Particularly in fields like citizen journalism and programming created around taboo topic areas.

Bravo David Tench (and all involved in bringing that guy to life) on a good job done.

TV Week’s best TV shows of all time?

Apparently Australian TV magazine TV Week (approximately Australia’s 37th most vital publication about television) ran a survey seeking to determine the best Australian TV shows of all time.

When you look at the list, not a lot of it really makes a lot of sense, which speaks to the initial suggested list of options by TV Week, the audience for the magazine, and the voting mechanism.

In a chat with David Knox from TV Tonight a few weeks ago, I insisted that Hey Hey It’s Saturday (a variety show which ran for an original 29 year run and has maintained an irrational love for it that has only amplified in the years since it was cancelled) would come in at number one, following its omission by the TV Week editorial team.

Knox insisted that it would be Kath & Kim, which was indeed number one. With Hey Hey languishing at 25… which is still impressive as a write-in ballot entry.

It just goes to show that one should never argue with David Knox. A mistake I know I will make many more times.

That said, while I’m not calling for the return of Hey Hey It’s Saturday, I did find myself on the couch last Saturday night at 6:30pm lamenting that there wasn’t some sort of variety show on at that time which I could watch with my almost five year-old kid. TV is missing something in its absence.

News Desk

• Speaking of TV Week, the TV Week Logie Awards were held last night. Sam Pang won the Gold Logie, while somehow Dog Park and RFDS won the scripted categories. Read: TV Tonight

• HBO’s The Pitt dominated the 2026 Astra TV Awards with seven wins, ahead of Netflix’s Beef (five) and Hacks and Shrinking (four each), taking Drama Series as Hacks won Comedy and Beef took Limited Series. Read: Deadline

• Black Mirror director Ally Pankiw and Loki‘s Kate Herron say they turned down HBO’s Harry Potter series over J.K. Rowling‘s anti-trans views. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Disney+ has scrapped its planned live-action Power Rangers reboot, reportedly the cost was an issue for IP that Disney doesn’t own. Read: Deadline

• Hulu has cancelled crime comedy Deli Boys after two seasons with a too-small second-season audience to blame. Read: Deadline

• RuPaul’s Drag Race has been renewed for a 19th season at MTV, with Untucked and a 12th All Stars was also ordered. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Netflix has moved to dismiss Tyra Banks‘ defamation suit over the docuseries Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, arguing she signed away creative control and that her editing complaints don’t amount to defamation. Read: The Hollywood Reporter

• Documentary filmmakers including Laura Poitras and Geeta Gandbhir are sounding the alarm over the Paramount–Warner Bros. merger, fearing that folding CBS News and CNN’s vast archives into one owner will choke off access to historical footage. Read: IndieWire

• Netflix has ordered Sid & Zoey, an eight-episode supernatural YA gothic romance from creator Jon Kasdan with J.J. Abrams, James Wan and Jason Blum producing. Read: Deadline

• Jon Favreau‘s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a three-part miniseries blending live action and hand-drawn animation, will hit Disney+ in February 2027 with a voice cast including Steve Martin and Albert Brooks. Read: Variety

• Scott Foley will reprise the role of Sean Kelly in season two of ABC’s Scrubs revival. Read: Deadline

• Keyla Monterroso Mejia from Curb Your Enthusiasm is also joining Scrubs season two in a recurring role as Mimi, a new surgical nurse for Turk. Read: Deadline

• HBO Max has renewed Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, the The Big Bang Theory, for a second season. Read: AV Club

• Matthew McConaughey says he seriously considered but passed on Joel in The Last of Us — the role that went to Pedro Pascal — because he wasn’t really acting at the time and was wary of a years-long series commitment. Read: Dark Horizons

Trailer Park

The Bluey Movie arrives in cinemas on Aug 6, 2027. Yeah… it looks weird and off. My initial impression is that the 3D design style looks a lot cheaper than the show does in 2D. But also, perhaps we just need to see more of it to get comfortable with the design shift.

Bluey, the boundlessly energetic Blue Heeler pup, and her Queensland family head to the big screen in a fully CG-animated feature from series creator Joe Brumm.

The Mandalorian and Grogu debuts on Disney+ on Sept 2.

Din Djarin and Grogu embark on their first big-screen adventure across a galaxy still reeling from the fall of the Empire.

Ahsoka returns for season 2 on Disney+ on Jan 20, 2027.

VisionQuest debuts on Disney+ on Oct 14.

White Vision hides from the authorities after the events of WandaVision, a bounty on his head, as he searches for genuine connection — the conclusion to the trilogy begun in WandaVision and Agatha All Along.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians returns for season 3 on Disney+ on Nov 20.

Mousetrap debuts on Netflix on Aug 28.

A reclusive novelist discovers his identity has been stolen by a mysterious figure known only as “Rat,” and sets out to hunt him down and reclaim everything taken from him.

Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya returns for season 2 on Prime Video.

That’s the newsletter for the today.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of Always Be Watching.

Connect with Dan on Bluesky. Connect with Dan on Letterboxd. Connect with Dan on Linkedin. Challenge him on the NYT word game Crossplay. Email Dan @ alwaysbewatching.com or just reply to this email.

In 2005 this type of character was already on the nose, with Arrested Development realising Rita Leeds on the screen. This was just ahead of Nathan Rabin coining the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl in 2007 during a review of Elizabethtown.

Rabin referenced the Manic Pixie Dream Girl as a female character who “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” They’re done so with characteristics that speak to a magical, otherworldly realm.

But here we are in 2026, with Netflix adapting My Brilliant Career and dropping a manic pixie dream girl right at the centre of the show. Seemingly designed by algorithm, Philippa Northeast explodes on the screen with a high energy, hyper articulate performance that jettisons the much more nuanced Judy Davis performance from the 1979 film in favour of a character who is a gumbo of every Zooey Deschanel role, Rory Gilmore, and a dash of early career Greta Gerwig, among others.

It’s not that this new take on My Brilliant Career isn’t entertaining enough, it’s just that so much of the show feels like elements we have already seen over-used in movies and TV shows a lot in recent years. There’s the high-energy MPDG heroine driving the action. And then there’s the use of modern music soundtrack and diegetically. And supporting characters who seemingly took a wrong turn from a luncheon on HBO’s The Guilded Age.

There’s just a lot to be frustrated by in this show. And yet, I’ll watch it through to the end of its first six-episode season.

My feelings on the show were best summed up by wealthy suitor Frank:

Usually this newsletter will only focus on shows available to watch at time of publication (Friday afternoons through to Saturday morning), but this week I also wanted to put the spotlight on a cracking good superhero TV show debuting on HBO this coming Sunday evening (Monday afternoon for my Australian comrades).

While it has never been my favourite comic by any means, I have always loved what Green Lantern represents. He’s a space cop protecting his home planet of Earth (and the surrounding planets in his designated sector) whose power comes from a power ring that will conjure up and objects that he wills into existence. He’s a super hero who is bound only by his imagination.

HBO’s Lanterns series feels like a Tom King comic book, which makes sense as he is one of the three credited creators of the TV show. King is well-known as a comic book writer and specialises in deconstructing superheroes and their worlds, delivered with a heavily grounded and relatable tone.

Lanterns follows our hard travelling hero Hal Jordan and lantern-in-training John Stewart across three timelines. It follows the tropes of the grizzled senior cop partnered with the moralistic young rookie, but in a move that will piss off a lot of purist comic book fans, this Hal Jordan is not to be trusted. The True Detective analogy was invited by the trailer, but it plays out a lot more like the Denzel Washington/Ethan Hawke film Training Day – only with power rings.

And finally…

I have a strong memory of sitting in a very empty cinema in Brisbane on the opening night of The X-Files: I Want To Believe in 2008. The show faded from glory well before it aired its series finale after nine seasons in 2002 and this film felt like it was serving an audience who had already expressed disinterest in the faded franchise.

It didn’t help that the film was not very good. Creator of the show Chris Carter was back here directing from a script he had co-written and it once again showed his chops as a director. I have a lot of negative things to say about Chris Carter as a writer, but the man really is a very good director and its a shame we never saw him doing more of that once his TV show wound up.

The narrative surrounding the film was that Carter had to make a lot of concessions to the studio in order to deliver a PG-13 X-Files horror film. Recently he was given the opportunity to re-cut the film, so this weekend we have the release of The X-Files: Vrash Frankenshteyn. It’s Chris Carter’s directors cut.

The film is a big improvement on what I remember of the original version. It is faster-paced and delivers a more cohesive thematic link between Mulder’s monster of the week story and Scully’s belief vs medical science plot. But, the new edit doesn’t solve the three biggest flaws with the film:

1. It feels too much like a double episode of the series and not enough as a film that stands on its own.

2. While this may be an X-Files film, the plot feels far more in line with Chris Carter’s other TV show Millennium. As much as I liked that show, an X-Files movie should feel more like The X-Files where its monsters were a little less human.

3. Callum Keith Rennie is an actor I’ve always liked, but the film needed a stronger villain.

The movie is streaming now on Hulu/Disney+. If you know where to look. It is inexplicably hidden as an extra on The X-Files: I Want To Believe. You need the investigative powers of Mulder and Scully to find the darn thing.

Returning TV

Reacher (s04, Prime Video) Alan Ritchson, Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette, Sydelle Noel, Agnez Mo, Anggun, and Kevin Corrigan

Tires (s03) Shane Gillis, Stavros Halkias, Chris O’Connor, and Steve Gerben

Dr. Seuss’s Red Fish, Blue Fish (s03) Animated preschool series, ten new episodes.

Women in Blue (s02, Apple TV+) Bárbara Mori, Natalia Téllez, Amorita Rasgado, and Ximena Sariñana

New TV

My Brilliant Career — Netflix

Who’s in it: Philippa Northeast, Christopher Chung, Anna Chancellor, Genevieve O’Reilly, Kate Mulvany, Jake Dunn, Alexander England, and Odessa Young

What’s it about? Set against the sweeping landscapes of 1900 Australia, fiercely modern Sybylla Melvyn dreams of becoming a writer, even as her family pushes her toward marriage to wealthy neighbour Harry Beecham. A witty, romantic, slightly rebellious six-part adaptation of Miles Franklin’s classic novel, shot in South Australia.

Moria — Netflix

Who’s in it: Sofía Gala Castiglione, Griselda Siciliani, Cecilia Roth, and Moria Casán

What’s it about? As she turns 80, Argentine entertainment icon Moria Casán takes control of her own life story in this fictionalised biographical drama, portrayed at different ages by three acclaimed actresses alongside Casán herself. A tribute to Argentine pop culture and a portrait of a woman who turned transgression into survival.

Umthetho — Netflix

Who’s in it: Nqobile Nunu Khumalo, Tony Kgoroge, Sindi Dlathu, Given Stuurman, and Lorcia Cooper

What’s it about? To keep her youngest brother alive, an idealistic state prosecutor is forced to become a double agent inside her imprisoned older brother’s ruthless prison gang. A South African adaptation of Netflix’s Brazilian series Brotherhood, from Mandla N’s Black Brain Pictures.

New Movies

The Ribbon Hero — Netflix

Who’s in it: To confirm

What’s it about? A Japanese animated feature based on Osamu Tezuka’s pioneering manga Princess Knight, from the “Godfather of Manga” himself. Sapphire, princess of a fallen kingdom, rises as the Ribbon Hero to defend her new home from the calamity that destroyed everything she once knew.

Midwinter Break — Netflix

Who’s in it: Lesley Manville, Ciarán Hinds, and Niamh Cusack

What’s it about? Retired couple Stella and Gerry take an impromptu holiday to Amsterdam hoping to escape the staid routines of their lives in Glasgow, but the trip forces them to confront long-buried trauma and the uncertain future of their marriage.

Nando Between Two Worlds — A Sintonia Film — Netflix

Who’s in it: Christian Malheiros, Júlia Yamaguchi, Duda Pimenta, and Henrique Santana

What’s it about? A Portuguese-language spin-off from the beloved Brazilian teen crime drama Sintonia, centred on fan-favourite Nando as he navigates his dangerous double life. Five years after rising to power in the criminal underworld, Nando is living quietly in Serbia until his teenage daughter Bruninha vanishes, forcing him back to Brazil and back into a world he swore he’d left behind.

A Child of My Own — Netflix

Who’s in it: Ana Celeste Montalvo Peña, Luisa Guzmán, and Armando Espitia

What’s it about? After suffering multiple miscarriages, a recently married woman fabricates a pregnancy to escape societal shame, a charade that spirals into a national media scandal. An intimate docudrama from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Maite Alberdi.

This, That and Everything in Between — Netflix

Who’s in it: Jodi Sta. Maria, Agot Isidro, Gardo Versoza, Ruby Ruiz, and RK Bagatsing

What’s it about? A successful TV writer’s carefully rebuilt life unravels when her estranged mother resurfaces after 27 years away, carrying a deeply buried secret. Together, the two women must navigate their painful past and untangle the dynamics of their highly dysfunctional family. A Filipino drama directed by Cholo Laurel.

Don’t Say Good Luck — Netflix

Who’s in it: Sunny Sandler, Melanie Lynskey, Max Greenfield, Jack Champion, Stephanie Beatriz, Scarlett Estevez, Jon Lovitz, Bebe Neuwirth, and Steve Buscemi

What’s it about? Sophie Birenbaum is a theatre kid ready for the spotlight as the lead in her high school musical, until sudden family drama threatens to upstage the drama on stage. A coming-of-age dramedy from director Julia Hart and producer Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison.

My Best Friend, His Girlfriend and Me — Netflix

Who’s in it: Kostja Ullmann, David Kross, Janina Uhse, Ferdinand Hofer, and Timon Ballenberger

What’s it about? Olli and Matze have been inseparable best friends since childhood, living, working and planning to travel the world together, until Matze falls hard for Rebecca. Convinced his best friend is being changed beyond recognition, Olli teams up with a pal to sabotage the romance, kicking off an escalating battle for Matze’s attention.

To the Max — Netflix

Who’s in it: Carlos Cuevas, Miguel Bernardeau, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, and Candela González

What’s it about? After dedicating his youth to climbing, Carlos discovers BASE jumping in a wingsuit, the closest thing to true flight, and finds a fierce new brotherhood with fellow jumpers Darío and Armando. A Spanish drama based on real events, following a real-life group of BASE-jumping pioneers marked by repeated tragedy.

New Documentaries

Mourinho — Netflix

Who’s in it: José Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson, John Terry, Frank Lampard, and Zlatan Ibrahimović

What’s it about? Filmed over two years, this three-part documentary charts José Mourinho’s rise from FC Porto’s shock Champions League triumph through Chelsea, Inter Milan, and back to Real Madrid, told through exclusive access to Mourinho himself alongside candid interviews with the game’s biggest names.

Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes — Netflix

What’s it about? The latest instalment in Netflix’s true-crime documentary franchise draws on previously unreleased prison phone calls, firsthand accounts and archival footage for a chilling look inside the mind of Charles Manson, tracing his rise as a cult leader, the 1969 murders, and his trial.

Bridey Drake: Pure Average — Stan [Aus]

Who’s in it: Bridey Drake, Jiny Maeng, Michael Drake, Yulina Collins, and Soraya Duggan

What’s it about? With a global following of over 11 million, Australian digital icon Bridey Drake pulls back the curtain on fame, flaws and finding yourself in this six-part comedy docuseries about success, self-worth and imperfection, from an average outback girl to the founder of a global pyjama empire.

That’s the newsletter for this week.

Consider becoming a paid supporter of Always Be Watching.

Connect with Dan on Bluesky. Connect with Dan on Letterboxd. Connect with Dan on Linkedin. Email Dan @ alwaysbewatching.com or just reply to this email.

It was a shame because GL is one of those great, fully realised sci-fi …

Read more

I simply don’t understand anything about Variety’s list of the “top 61 showrunners of 2026.”

I’m left looking at the list and asking questions like:

• The obvious… why ‘61’?

• What qualifies a showrunner to make the list?

• It says that it is …

Read more

Read more

The short was from The Tracey Ullman show and featured Bart, Lisa, and Homer at a Sea World type of aquarium. Bart…

Read more

Of course, all it takes is one bad year for a studio to completely dump a strategy and pivot in a new direction;. 30 films for years 1-3, then once the obligation ends, maybe that becomes 30 fil…

Read more

T…

Read more

Read more

Read more

The news come…

Read more

Read more

Read more

Read more

No reason has been given for the cancellation, but this, from Deadline, speaks to the likely reason: viewership.

Season 1 launched with all eight episodes on Janu…

Read more