00:00Hi everyone, I'm Scott Feinberg, and thank you for tuning in to FaceTime with Feinberg,
00:03a new video series for The Hollywood Reporter, in which I will riff for a few minutes about
00:07something on my mind. Today, for our inaugural episode, I want to talk about the fact that
00:11there is no stronger category at this year's Emmys than Best Limited or Anthology Series,
00:16and how unimaginable that would have been just a few years ago.
00:20First, let's note how much TV has changed generally since the explosion of premium cable
00:24and streamers. When Jennifer Aniston was doing the comedy series Friends for NBC,
00:28she had to shoot 24 or 25 episodes a season. The first season of her most recent show,
00:33Apple TV Plus' The Morning Show, was comprised of 10, and the entire two-season run of Amazon's
00:39Fleabag ran just 12. A big part of this is that viewers and talent don't really like long series
00:45anymore. Big-name stars don't want to work that much or that hard, and viewers and Emmys voters
00:50don't have the attention span for them. It's part of why shows from the broadcast networks have almost
00:54entirely disappeared from the major Emmys categories. I would argue that it is not coincidental
01:00that concurrent with the decline of the long series has been the resurgence of the short series,
01:05aka the miniseries, aka the limited or anthology series. Decades ago, when there were just three
01:10or four networks, these things were huge rating straws. Roots, The Thorn Birds, and Lonesome Dove
01:15are still among the most highly rated and acclaimed programs in TV history. Somewhere along the line,
01:20though, they grew out of fashion. To the extent that a decade ago, from 2011 through 2013, the TV
01:27Academy actually merged the miniseries and TV movie categories because there weren't even enough
01:31outstanding examples to fill each separately. Ironically, that was exactly when the limited
01:36series began to roar back to life, with Mildred Pierce, Downton Abbey, American Horror Story,
01:41Hatfields and McCoys, The Bible, Top of the Lake, Fargo, Olive Kittredge, American Crime,
01:46The People vs. O.J. Simpson, The Night Manager, Big Little Lies, Feud, Betty and Joan, Genius,
01:51The Night Of, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Patrick Melrose, Chernobyl, Escape at Dannemora,
01:56Fosse Verde, and Sharp Objects, When They See Us, Mrs. America, Unbelievable, Unorthodox,
02:01Watchmen, and the list goes on. Now, limited series, from Downton Abbey to Big Little Lies,
02:06are even spawning regular series. What a difference a decade makes. So what happened? With it harder than
02:13ever to get a movie made that isn't from Marvel, Pixar, or Lucasfilm, and is truly original,
02:18ambitious, and appealing to creative talent, talent want the next best thing, and that is the
02:23limited series. Consider the cinematic bona fides of this year's field of contenders.
02:28Multipart projects directed in their entirety by Best Picture Oscar winners Steve McQueen
02:32and Barry Jenkins, Small Axe and Amazon's The Underground Railroad, respectively, and Susanna
02:37Beer, the director of a Best International Feature Oscar winner, with The Undoing.
02:41Star vehicles for A-listers like Kate Winslet with HBO's Mare of Easttown, Brian Cranston
02:46with Showtime's Your Honor, Ewan McGregor with Netflix's Halston, Jeff Daniels with Showtime's
02:51The Comey Rule, Ethan Hawke with Showtime's The Good Lord Bird, and Nicole Kidman and Hugh
02:56Grant with The Undoing. Even Marvel has gotten into the game, with its first programming for
03:00Disney+, WandaVision. And of course, FX has its latest incarnation of Fargo, which was inspired
03:06by the 1996 Coen Brothers film of the same name. That's to say nothing of a bunch of other
03:11outstanding entries, including Netflix's The Queen's Gambit, HBO's I May Destroy You,
03:16and Nat Geo's Genius Aretha. The bottom line? Long TV series have never been weaker, and short
03:22or limited series have never been stronger. For The Hollywood Reporter, I'm Scott Feinberg,
03:26and thank you for tuning in to FaceTime with Feinberg.
Comments