Hi! Big fan of your work! My question is: how has the experience of TV writing changed recently, because of streaming? Is it true that streaming services mandate more exposition in dialogue because they think viewers are on their phones? What do you think of where things are heading?
Ok, that was three questions in one! Still, would love to get your perspective on what it's like behind the scenes of TV production today.
I've never actually worked on a streaming show, so I can't answer your questions about the specifics of working on one. That said, I feel like streaming has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, it's allowed for shows with high budgets and thus terrific production value, with wonderful big name actors, beautiful locations, gorgeous sets, jaw dropping fx, all that sort of thing. Not to mention free rein when it comes to things like adult subject matter, challenging themes, etc. Also, if you've got a big, serialized story to tell, streaming lends itself extremely well to that. I mean, look at shows like Handmaid's Tale, The Great, Silo, The Morning Show, Fallout, etc etc etc. I love them all. They're all terrific, beautiful, have top notch cast, and there's no way in hell any of them could have been made for a network budget with FCC dictated broadcast limitations on content.
So, from what I've heard and from what I imagine, working in streaming gives writers much more creative freedom, bigger budgets, and the chance to cast honest-to-god movie star caliber actors in their shows. All good things!
But there are definitely costs. Especially now that the streaming boom has collapsed. There are less shows. Each show does way less episodes. And there are less seasons. Even a streaming hit like The Great only got 3 seasons of 10 episodes. 30 episodes total. Handmaid's Tale? 66 episodes. Which is a ton for streaming. Mr. and Mrs. Smith was great but got 1 season and 8 episodes. And the seasons take longer to make, and appear less frequently. In other words, at 110 episodes, Andromeda, which was just an OK syndie action hour, got more episodes than all of the above COMBINED! (And cost about as much as ONE season of The Morning Show by the way. Okay, maybe 2). AND we made those 110 episodes in 5 years. A Handmaid's Tale took NINE.
Now consider that TV writers get paid BY THE EPISODE. Our contracts are structured so that we get a certain amount of money per episode produced per season, divided by the total number of weeks needed to write and produce said season. We did 26 episodes a year on DS9. 24 on Elementary. Even if streaming rates were double network (spoiler, they're decidedly NOT), 26(p) > 10(2p). Oh, remember the year thing? That 10(2p)? It's actually 26p/y vs 20p/2y. In other words, even if I got paid twice what I made per episode on Andromeda (which again, I wouldn't), if I worked on a streaming show, I'd be looking at a 60% pay cut.
To sum... the transition from network to streaming means most writers make much less money. Which sucks. And they get to write fewer episodes per year. Which also sucks. And because you need fewer writers to write 8 episodes than 26, there are fewer writers per show. And that sucks a lot. Fewer jobs, fewer episodes produced, way less money.
Also, fewer episodes for you to enjoy, and, for most shows, almost no episodes that aren't 100% on main plot. So, no fun little side eps like "Little Green Men" or standalone mystery-of-the-weeks like 95% of Elementary. Which in my opinion is a pretty big loss.
Streaming has been a mixed blessing for TV writing for sure.
TL;DR: Streaming = bigger budgets, more creative freedom, huge production value, fewer episodes, fewer jobs, way less money for TV writers, way less variety in storytelling for any given show.
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