#series ever had in its 100 plus episodes. when this aired The Champions would have been roughly in the middle of its run

[mariocki]

Stuart Damon guest stars as Texan oil baron (and Simon's new bff) Rod Huston in The Saint: The Ex-King of Diamonds (6.17, ITC, 1969); this episode was the direct inspiration for Roger Moore's subsequent series The Persuaders! (ITC, 1971 - 72)

[acavatica]

i-wakeupstrange said:

i’m not including this in my review of the elevator fic because it was becoming its own huge, ridiculous tangent, but in short: it’s now my headcanon that Marco is into anime (OF COURSE why didn’t I realize sooner) and in a roundabout way that’s Peter’s doing. (he’s a little old for NGE but, I think, about the right age to have gotten real into, say, Robotech. and decide to show his son these shows. because he’s a Cool Dad. or tried to be before... you know.)

Peter told himself that he was watching cartoons because of the baby, but also all the baby books he’d tried to force Eva to read had said that babies have about a foot of vision and see colors like a dog. Then he told himself that he was watching cartoons because the bright colors and laser sounds kept him awake. At least that wasn’t a complete lie. 

The full truth was that he thought Robotech was cool. It was serialized, which was more than he could say for any American TV shows. It wasn’t as if Peter could read Dune with a baby in his arms no matter how much he wanted to, even if he’d missed the last two books and another was coming out later that year. And it wasn’t as if Peter could read Dune anyway since he was off Ritalin again, but that was neither here nor there. TV shows would catch up to book series eventually.

The fact that it had a story he could follow was just a bonus. The real draw of Robotech was that it aired in marathons in the middle of the night. That was a lot less likely to wake up his ten-week-old than changing his Doctor Who tapes every four episodes. Plus, he’d had to pay someone on USENET to ship the tapes all the way from Brighton. If he wore them out, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find the guy ripping VHS tapes on net.tv.drwho again.

Eva’s alarm went off, muffled by the bedroom door. Peter closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the couch cushion. 5:30 already. He’d been letting her get most of the sleep to reimburse her for the whole pregnancy thing, but now that she was going back to work, he wouldn’t even have a choice.

He listened to her shuffle around the kitchen. He heard every step of her putting on a pot of coffee. Eva never did anything quietly, but it hadn’t taken him long to get used to it. After all, there was nothing more comforting than knowing his ever-so-slightly evil partner would at least never be able to sneak up on him. 

He opened his eyes to catch her shaking out her still-rumpled hair and stretching out the crick in her back. He heard that too, from all the way across the room. Another thing Peter was repaying her for. She saw him watching and closed the distance between them. Eva draped her elbows over the back of the couch and touched her cheek to Peter’s head. Peter took a deep breath, and he smelled her shampoo and the coffee and their new baby. 

Putting his PhD on hold was worth it.

Eva cocked her head to the side, rolling her chin over Peter’s forehead. “Wow, look at her hair. Japan really has progressive ideas about the meaning of ‘spiral curls.’” She walked around to the front of the couch, plopped down, and held out her arms. “Hand him over.”

Marco started whining almost immediately. 

“I’m surprised you know it’s Japanimation.”

Eva rolled her eyes. “We had Japanese cartoons in Mexico. And actually, the acting was way better than this.”

“Yeah, but were there giant fighting robots?”

“I dunno, this shit is for nerds.” Marco was still fussing in her arms, but she was looking down at him like she understood where he was coming from. “You’re gonna make our kid a nerd, aren’t you?”

Peter smiled. “I don’t know what you expected when you decided to have a baby with me.”

“Feh, yeah, ‘decided.’” Eva stretched her leg out and gave Peter’s knee a good nudge.

She pulled her leg back, crossed her ankles, and cradled Marco with her whole body. All three of them fell quiet, and Minmay sang Marco back to sleep.

⁠—⁠—⁠— 

Marco was born whining, and after four years, he still only stopped when he was asleep.

“Why do I have to do daycare?”

“You asked to watch Voltron. It’s the fifth time we’ve watched Voltron. Please watch Voltron.”

Marco bobbed his head back and forth as he quoted the onscreen conversation between Queen Merla and King Zarkon: “The chamber is full of quarks. ⁠— Quirks? ⁠— No, quarks. You see, everything is made of atoms, and all atoms are made of quarks. ⁠— Hm, nice, but how does it work? ⁠— Well, there are six kinds of quarks: up, down, top, bottom, strange. And my favorite kind, charmed.”

“Well. At least we can be sure you’re my kid. And Eva’s. And of why I like this show.”

“If you like it, don’t complain.”

Peter ran his hand over his hair and tried to ignore how thin it was getting. “Definitely Eva’s kid…” 

Marco rolled over closer to Peter and looked up at him pleadingly. “Whyyy do I have to do daycare?”

“Because,” Peter said reluctantly. “I finally finished school, and it was really hard, but I got a cool job out of it.”

Marco’s eyes basically tripled in size, and he poked out his lower lip. Definitely, 100% for sure, Eva’s kid. “But I’ll miss you.”

Peter sighed. “I’ll miss you too. But you’re starting school in the fall anyway, so think of it like practice.”

Marco crossed his arms and turned his eyes back to the TV. He stayed quiet for maybe a minute, long enough for the pilots to form Voltron. Without taking his eyes off the TV, he said, “What if they don’t know how to microwave Spaghetti-Os?”

“If there’s any lesson you have to learn, it’s that sometimes you have to settle for Spaghetti-Os that aren’t made by Chef Boyardee Champion of the World, Your Dad.”

“Spaghetti-Os aren’t even Chef Boyardee,” Marco mumbled.

Peter reached his leg over and nudged Marco’s knee with his foot. “Don’t you want to be brave like Lance?”

Marco pushed Peter’s foot away, crossed his arms again, and sank into the couch. “No. I wanna be diablo-lolical like Prince Lotor.”

“Well, Prince Lotor doesn’t even need his dad.”

Marco glanced over at Peter, and Peter grinned. Marco sank even further into the couch until his feet almost touched the floor.

⁠—⁠—⁠— 

The bluish glow of the TV cast long shadows across the room. There wasn’t much contrast because it was a pretty dark movie, but Marco was still illuminated against the dull, colorless room. The volume was only one notch above mute, but he was sitting on his knees, so close to the TV that he could almost make out every word. It’s not like the sound would have bothered his dad, even if he turned it all the way up. Marco kept it low so he could still hear Peter breathing, and even acknowledging that feeling ate away his insides.

It had been a whole year, and for a while Marco had tried not to think about how he was the only thing keeping his dad alive, in more ways than one. It got harder the longer Peter didn’t get better. Marco didn’t even have cable to distract himself from his messed up life. He just had the same old VHS tapes, and they’d had to donate a bunch of them to Goodwill when they’d moved. 

The box was still there, still packed and next to the TV, labeled in Marco’s sloppy kid handwriting. Peter hadn’t helped with the move⁠—it had mostly been Jake’s family and his mom’s relatives he’d never met and would probably never see again. Marco could still see his hands pulling the tapes off the shelves, sorting them, reading the labels in Peter’s sloppy grownup handwriting, and not being able to bear to throw away the memories of sitting between his mom and dad with popcorn in his lap, even if he might never be able to watch those tapes again.

There were only a few tapes scattered around the plastic milk crate the TV sat on. The rest were still in the box. Marco had gone through them dozens of times, and he was still limited to the few tapes he didn’t associate with a time when he had a family. 

He’d never watched Ghost in the Shell with his dad. That was probably a good thing, because there was a lot of nudity, and that was always awkward. There was also some gore, which Peter knew gave Marco nightmares, even if he pretended not to be scared. Marco had played the movie in front of Peter dozens of times anyway, but his eyes didn’t track it, and he didn’t tell Marco that he should turn it off, he was too young to see all these nipples.

Marco turned around, blinded from sitting so close to the TV. He didn’t need to see his dad. He knew he was curled in on himself, his face buried in the place where the back of the couch met the seat and the arm. There was no way to know if he was asleep or awake, and Marco wasn’t even sure those words had meaning in Peter’s life anymore.

“Hey Dad,” Marco said, his voice creaky, either from disuse, disgust, or some other kind of emotion. “What do you think about the whole brains jacking into the internet thing? Realistic? It seems like the kind of thing you’d have worked on.”  Marco listened to Peter’s breathing. It never changed. Marco could say anything. “You know. When you worked.”

Marco turned away, back to the TV. He pressed Stop, and the tape clicked off, flooding the room with light so bright and blue, it hurt his eyes. He pressed rewind and the whir of the tape drowned out Peter’s breathing. It was crazy, but as the VCR started to grind to the end of the tape, Marco was suddenly, irrationally, completely sure that when the tape stopped rolling, the room would be totally silent. His body flashed hot and then cold and his pulse pounded painfully in his temples.

The tape clicked off. Marco held his breath.

Peter breathed in. Out. In. Out.

Marco pressed play, turned the volume up a few more notches, and got to his feet. As he passed, he shoved his dad’s leg with his foot. He stood over him, waiting like he expected some kind of reaction. The TV lit up his motionless body in green, gray, white. The cyborg pulled the cables out of her neck and stood.

“If only someone would ghost hack you.”

Marco went into his bedroom⁠—the only bedroom⁠—and slammed the door.  

⁠—⁠—⁠— 

Marco’s back was flat against the dirt floor of the scoop, his head resting on his folded arms. His right leg was draped over Ax’s back and he’d slowly tangled his left leg up in Ax’s tail. Ax didn’t like that, and he knew Ax didn’t like it, and that’s why he’d taken it slow. He’d started by sticking his leg under Ax’s tail. He’d waited a couple weeks, and then he’d surreptitiously make a loop over the course of an hour. Now, after like a month of acclimating him, Ax’s tail was wrapped around Marco’s leg like a boa constrictor, and maybe Ax didn’t even notice.

He definitely noticed. Marco had just pulled off an incredible feat of exposure therapy. Ax just wasn’t allergic to how annoying Marco was anymore. Too bad the allergy was familial, and it was harder to wallow a hawk into submission.

<You’re not even watching,> Tobias complained.

Marco lolled his head to the side and pointed his eyes at the TV. “Why are you making me read TV, Tobias? The point of TV is to not have to read.”

<Subtitles are more authentic,> Tobias said, his voice dripping with condescension.

“But what about Ax? Poor Ax can’t read at all.”

<I can read,> Ax said, his voice a mixture of defensive and arrogant. <And even if I couldn’t, my translator chip has no trouble processing Japanese.> Snobbiness ran in their family too. 

“I’m just saying, I’d be able to pay more attention if I could understand the words and look at the pictures at the same time. You know, how it’s intended to be consumed?”

<It’s intended to be consumed in Japanese.> 

Marco rolled his eyes and sighed. It was the obnoxious kind of sigh, the voiced kind that’s practically a groan. “It’s just robots, dude, it’s not that serious.”

<Neon Genesis Evangelion is art, Marco,> Tobias said, ratcheting the pretension up to eleven. <It’s an exploration of how humanity would develop, given exposure to advanced alien technology in the face of an oncoming alien threat. And the only thing protecting humanity from annihilation is some teenagers with special powers. It’s like, relatable.> 

“Wow,” Marco said sarcastically. “Never seen anything like that before.” That was basically the plot of Robotech mixed with Voltron, but boring.

<I mean, you must have never seen anime before, or you’d know how terrible the English dubs are.>

Marco sat up on his elbows and narrowed his eyes. Ax tightened his tail ever so slightly around Marco’s leg, like he was trying to hold him back. Marco pulled his leg free. “That’s pretty funny, since how could you even have watched so much subbed anime when no one cared enough about you to buy you decent clothes or new shoes or Clearasil? Let alone to go out of their way to buy you anime, subtitled specifically, the way it’s intended, of course.”

Tobias stared at him. Ax stared at him. Hell, Shinji Ikari stared at him.

Marco couldn’t take even a minute of it. “Say something.”

<I just wanted to share something I like with you.> 

Tobias opened his wings, fluttered to the edge of the scoop entrance, and flew away.

Ax was still looking at him with all four eyes. Marco squirmed, but he pressed his lips into a line and didn’t break eye contact.

<That was too far,> Ax said finally, his voice more gentle than Marco deserved. <Why did you react so forcefully?>

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Marco leaned around Ax, grabbed the remote, and changed the audio to English. “Let’s just watch this dumb robot show.”

[thatsnotcanonpodcasts]

Back flip, True Lies & DRM

Here we go with another episode from Nerds Amalgamated. This week is packed full of fun stuff to look forward to. First up is it a robot or is it a dog? It is Boston Dynamics student competitors with Standford Doggo. This fabulous little robot is awesome and does tricks, listen in to find out what they are. Also did you want your very own robot doggo? Well you are in luck as we tell you about how to get one. Also check our website for the show notes with hyperlinks, you need the article to get what you need.

            Next up we have DJ telling us about a proposed new series coming out based on a movie. Yep, another movie is being adapted for your viewing pleasure. It will once again not have the same actors in it that were the main stars in the movie, like so many others out there. But hopefully it will be enjoyable all the same. We won’t hold our breathe but surely they will have learned something over there by now… Who the heck are we kidding, those idiots never listen to anyone else, let alone the proposed viewing public.

            Next up we look at the blooper that is worthy of a standing ovation. Someone involved with the release of a game from Bethesda studios forgot the DRM. We know, how unlike Bethesda to stuff up something right? BWAHAHA!!! This amazing bit of luck is available on Steam and quite probably numerous other websites that deal in nefarious shadowy dealings. We personally are unaware of the names of such sites and therefore are unable to confirm or deny such suggestions. But come on, just think about it, a brand new game released without the DRM and no one is going to chase that down the rabbit hole of pirating it? Yeah, like Game of Thrones was never pirated ever.

            We have the usual shout outs, remembrances, birthdays and events from history. Plus games we are playing at the moment. All combined into one big mess that we call the show. We hope you enjoy and as always, stay safe, look after each other and stay hydrated.

EPISODE NOTES:

Back flipping robot - https://www.futurity.org/doggo-robot-2067152/

True Lies TV series reboot - https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/true-lies-tv-adaptation-heading-disney/

DRM - https://steamcommunity.com/games/548570/announcements/detail/2565275416672419265

Games currently playing

Buck

– The Crew 2 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/646910/The_Crew_2/

Professor

– Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - https://cataclysmdda.org/

DJ

– Steep - https://store.steampowered.com/app/460920/Steep/(edited)

Other topics discussed

Hold my Beer Comedy

- http://westender.com.au/circus-coming-hold-beer-end-westend/

Flipsy the dog (Simpsons reference)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_nGJvqHcV8

LEGO Mindstorms

- https://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms

Hulu might take Marvel shows such as Daredevil

- https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2466812/hulu-is-down-to-revive-daredevil-and-other-cancelled-marvel-tv-shows

Denuvo

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo

- https://www.howtogeek.com/400126/what-is-denuvo-and-why-do-gamers-hate-it/

Red Bull Air Championships

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Air_Race_World_Championship

6ix9ine (rapper)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6ix9ine

Cutscene saga (That’s Not Canon Production Podcast)

- https://thatsnotcanon.com/cutscenesagapodcast

Shoutouts

20 May 1736 - Westminster Bridge Defies a King and the Church - The Archbishop of Canterbury – head of the Church in England – probably prayed there would never be a bridge across the River Thames at Westminster. But he was not alone. Up to the end of the 17th Century most traffic moved up and down on the river rather than by road. River transport was big business and the men who plied their trade on boats and ferries had a lot to lose from the construction of new bridges. They were backed by the Corporation of London which did not want trade moving to the fringes of London, but claimed its main objections were the loss of custom to the watermen and to the City markets and the danger of the navigation of the river being impeded. One of the claims was that if the watermen lost their jobs there would be fewer readily available seamen for the navy if England went to war. The arguments raged on until in 1664 a major proposal for a bridge was made to the King's Privy Council and to the Lord Mayor. City businesses then played their ace card and bribed King Charles II to scrap the proposal. Officially, it was an interest-free loan, but however the transaction was described the effect was that the building of Westminster Bridge would not take place for nearly 100 years. However, over time various people continued to press for such a bridge until in 1721 petitions went to Parliament. There was the same opposition as before but in the end the case was won and permission to build the bridge finally received Royal Approval on 20 May 1736, when George II was on the throne. Work began in 1738 and the bridge was opened on 18 November 1750. - https://www.onthisday.com/articles/westminster-bridge-defies-a-king-and-the-church

21 May 1792 - Mount Unzen on Japan's Shimabara Peninsula, erupts creating a tsunami, killing about 15,000; Japan's deadliest volcanic eruption. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1792_Unzen_earthquake_and_tsunami

21 May 1980 - "Star Wars Episode V - Empire Strikes Back", produced by George Lucas opens in cinemas in UK and North America -https://www.onthisday.com/people/george-lucas

21 May 2004 - Stanislav Petrov awarded World Citizen Award for averting a potential nuclear war in 1983 after correctly guessing Russian early warning system at fault - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

22 May 2019 - Illawarra scientist and inventor Macinley Butson has been featured by the world's biggest video sharing website YouTube for her SMART Armour copper cancer shield fabric. Macinley Butson's SMART (Scale Maille Armour for Radiation Therapy) invention is a device that shields the contralateral breast (the breast not being treated) from excess radiation. As well as being made from high density copper, the shields are handmade. - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-22/youtube-profiles-teenage-scientist-macinley-butson/11134004

Remembrances

20 May 2019 – Nikki Lauda, Austrian Formula One driver, a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in 1975, 1977 and 1984, and an aviation entrepreneur. He was the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors. He is widely considered one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time. As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was a Bombardier Business Aircraft brand ambassador. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%. Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a 1975 title win and leading the 1976 championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. However, he survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he narrowly lost the title to James Hunt that year, he won his second Ferrari crown the year after during his final season at the team. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the 1984 title by 0.5 points over his teammate Alain Prost. He died of natural causes at 70 in Zurich. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niki_Lauda

21 May 1935 - Jane Addams, known as the mother of social work, a pioneer American settlement activist/reformer, social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, public administrator, protester, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. She co-founded Chicago's Hull House, one of America's most famous settlement houses. In 1920, she was a co-founder for the ACLU. In 1931, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is recognized as the founder of the social work profession in the United States. She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American pragmatist school of philosophy and is known by many as the first woman "public philosopher in the history of the United States". In the Progressive Era, when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent reformers. She helped America address and focus on issues that were of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, local public health, and world peace. In her essay "Utilization of Women in City Government," Addams noted the connection between the workings of government and the household, stating that many departments of government, such as sanitation and the schooling of children, could be traced back to traditional women's roles in the private sphere. Thus, these were matters of which women would have more knowledge than men, so women needed the vote to best voice their opinions. She said that if women were to be responsible for cleaning up their communities and making them better places to live, they needed to be able to vote to do so effectively. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She died of cancer at 74 in Chicago, Illinois.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams 

- https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1931/addams/biographical/

23 May 1701 - William Kidd, Scottish sailor who was tried and executed for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean. Some modern historians, for example Sir Cornelius Neale Dalton, deem his piratical reputation unjust. He was hanged for his crimes at 47 in Execution Dock,Wapping, London. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kidd

Famous birthdays

21 May 1948 – Leo Sayer, English-Australian singer-songwriter musician and entertainer whose singing career has spanned four decades. He is now an Australian citizen and resident. Sayer launched his career in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, and became a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s. His first seven hit singles in the United Kingdom all reached the Top 10 – a feat first registered by his first manager, Adam Faith. His songs have been sung by other notable artists, including Cliff Richard ("Dreaming"). He was born in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Sayer

21 May 1960 - Jeffrey Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender. Although he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder,schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder, Dahmer was found to be legally sane at his trial. He was convicted of 15 of the 16 murders he had committed in Wisconsin, and was sentenced to 15 terms of life imprisonment on February 15, 1992. He was later sentenced to a 16th term of life imprisonment for an additional homicide committed in Ohio in 1978. On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death by Christopher Scarver, a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer

22 May 1905 - Bodo von Borries, Germanphysicist. He was the co-inventor of the electron microscope. After World War II , he founded the "Rhine-Westphalia Institute for Electron Microscopy" in Düsseldorf in 1948. In 1949, he was involved in the foundation of the German Society for Electron Microscopy. He was born in Herford,North Rhine-Westphalia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_von_Borries

Events of Interest

21 May 1881 - American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross. - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-red-cross-founded

21 May 1927 - Aviator Charles Lindbergh, in the Spirit of St Louis, lands in Paris after the first solo air crossing of Atlantic. - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lindbergh-lands-in-paris

21 May 1932 - After flying for 17 hours from Newfoundland, Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, becoming the 1st transatlantic solo flight by a woman - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/earhart-completes-transatlantic-flight

22 May 1906 – The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".

-  Patent - http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Wrights/WrightUSPatent/WrightPatent.html

             -  https://patents.google.com/patent/US821393A/en

- Patent War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war 

Intro

Artist – Goblins from Mars

Song Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)

Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJ

Follow us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/

Email - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamated

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iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094

RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss

[theconservativebrief]

Between the end of Better Call Saul’s third season on June 19, 2017, and the beginning of its fourth season on Monday, August 6, 2018, 414 days passed. That’s nearly 100 more days than the 316 that elapsed between its first season in 2015 and the second in 2016.

But also, that’s nothing. The gap between season one and season two of Atlanta was 486 days. The gap between the first two seasons of Westworld was 505 days. If Stranger Things season three debuts on May 24, 2019 — just in time to qualify for the 2019 Emmys, as I suspect it will — 575 days will have passed since season two debuted. And if Game of Thrones’ final season premieres on April 14, 2019 — again, as I suspect it will, for Emmy reasons — a staggering 596 days will have passed between seasons. (Though for both Stranger Things and Game of Thrones, no official premiere dates have been announced, so the gaps could be smaller … or even larger.)

Things didn’t use to be this way. Occasionally, there were long gaps between two seasons of a show — especially on cable, where shows typically air fewer episodes per season — but they were usually the result of some sort of behind-the-scenes tension. Mad Men, for instance, spent 526 days off the air between seasons four and five, as AMC and creator Matt Weiner negotiated a new contract.

And 553 days went by between the sixth season of 24 and the special movie 24: Redemption (designed as a prelude to season seven), but that was due to the 2007–’08 writers strike, which halted the show’s production for months,

But for most of TV history, these long gaps were incredibly rare. Only The Sopranos purposely stayed off the air for extended periods of time, taking breaks of 484 days between seasons three and four, 456 days between seasons four and five, and 645 days between seasons five and six. But as always with The Sopranos, it proved to be an exception that underscored how most other shows on TV played by the rules.

In 2018, however, these prolonged stretches between seasons increasingly seem like a matter of course for major shows. We still don’t know when Mr. Robot’s fourth season will air, and its third season ended in December 2017. HBO has teased that Westworld’s third season might not air until 2020. Big Little Lies will almost certainly take nearly two years between season one and two — though it at least has the excuse of originally being planned as a standalone miniseries. And rumors of long delays have swirled around several other series, including reigning Emmy champion The Handmaid’s Tale.

So what’s going on here? Why has it become so much more common for shows to go on hiatus for a full year or more? After talking with several industry insiders, it’s become clear to me that the answers to those questions lie in the intersection of three TV trends that are coming together to create longer and longer delays.

Game of Thrones’ seventh season was three episodes shorter than its previous six had been. HBO

One reason that more and more time goes by between TV seasons is that the seasons themselves are getting shorter. For example, the first six seasons of Game of Thrones were only 10 episodes long — but they were still longer than season seven, which ran for only seven episodes. And season seven was still longer than the upcoming season eight, which will have only six episodes to its name.

It’s basic math: Though the gap between Game of Thrones seasons seven and eight would be long no matter what, it would be 21 days shorter if there had been 10 episodes in season seven instead of only seven.

The most obvious way to explain this is to look at the broadcast networks, which still mostly make series that air 18 episodes or more every season and rarely have gaps that exceed 200 days. Sometimes they don’t even exceed 120 days — a.k.a. the fairly standard summer hiatus between a show’s season finale in May and its season premiere in September.

When you’ve got to fit between 18 and 22 episodes into a single season, you simply don’t have much room for big gaps, outside of unusual situations like the one that befell 24 in the 2000s.

But if you’re making seasons that run between eight and 13 episodes, it becomes much easier for the gap between seasons to widen if there’s even a slight delay in production, which is how Mad Men took such a long break between its fourth and fifth seasons. (And if you’re making a Netflix series where all your episodes drop on the same day, then year-plus gaps between seasons become possible regardless of how many episodes you produce.)

Westworld’s puzzle-like construction makes it harder to assemble than more traditionally constructed shows. HBO

For years, when fans would ask why Game of Thrones didn’t produce more than 10 episodes per season, the producers’ answer was the same: It was physically impossible to produce more than 10 episodes. This was due to the show’s gigantic production scope, which involves massive special effects and filming all over the world. And as the series progressed and its scope only expanded, its number of episodes per season shrank accordingly.

But shows’ ambitions can go far beyond production scope, as they take on storytelling tasks that carry a high degree of difficulty. A series with more complicated storytelling — like Westworld, whose seasons almost resemble gigantic jigsaw puzzles — needs to take time to make sure that its stories and scripts are up to snuff. (Whether the series succeeds in this regard is up to the viewer to decide.) And even a show like Better Call Saul must find a way to simultaneously tell its own story while making sure it will eventually line up with Breaking Bad, the series to which it serves as a prequel.

All of these ambitions fall under the broader idea that as more TV shows crowd the landscape, it’s more difficult to stand out, and audiences are less forgiving of even minor screw-ups. The degree of difficulty ratchets up a little more with every year, and if a hit series needs an extra three or four months to figure out how to top its previous season, most networks are willing to take the risk of offering more time to get it right, instead of taking less time and getting it horribly wrong.

Mr. Robot is a show where lots of these trends converge. USA

Consider this: Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail directs every single episode of his show, a feat that requires a lot of prep time. But the massive success of Mr. Robot has meant he’s also getting offers to do other things, like direct episodes of Amazon’s new series Homecoming and produce other upcoming pilots for Mr. Robot’s network, USA.

The flip side of having so many TV shows crowding the landscape is that the industry needs an increasing number of people to run those TV shows, but there are fewer people who actually know the job backward and forward. When somebody comes along who does — like Mr. Robot’s Esmail or Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley — they often get bogged down with more work, which delays future seasons of the shows that made them well-known.

And the answer isn’t always to spread out or delegate responsibility. Too often, when less experienced showrunners step in on other shows, they get into a place where they need to delay production just to stay ahead of the massive rolling catastrophe that is any television series. That can translate into a delay in getting the season on the air. Sometimes everything turns out great, and sometimes it doesn’t. But the delays inevitably leave fans wondering when the next season will arrive.

That’s to say nothing of actors’ crowded schedules. Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk filmed a major role in the Best Picture–nominated The Post between seasons of his show, while Mr. Robot’s Rami Malek plays the lead role in the upcoming film Bohemian Rhapsody. And look at the careers of the Game of Thrones stars, who have found copious work in blockbusters and indie films of all shapes and sizes since the HBO show’s 2011 debut. TV actors have always been an asset to movies looking to fill out their casts, and as an increasing number of roles for actors migrate to television, films are raiding the small screen more than ever.

While the practice of filming a movie while your TV show is on hiatus has been around for as long as there have been TV shows, fitting actors’ other projects into a TV show’s schedule is just another headache for networks to figure out when planning a new season. Add cast scheduling hurdles to those involving both prominent and rookie showrunners and you have yet another explanation for why so many shows are taking longer and longer breaks between seasons.

Of course, longer gaps don’t have to be a bad thing. If nothing else, they take certain shows out of the annual Emmy race (as happened with Better Call Saul this year, and with Game of Thrones last year), leading to shake-ups in categories that might otherwise become staid. And taking extra time to try to make every episode of a show as good as it can possibly be is never a bad thing.

But viewers should get used to those long gaps. All of the above trends will only continue to grow more pronounced. We’re not there yet, but it’s not unimaginable to envision a future where new seasons of TV shows are treated like movie sequels, arriving every two or three years and becoming major events when they premiere, then receding in the pop culture landscape between new installments. Taking extra time can be a good thing, but those of us who’ve always taken a certain comfort in knowing our favorite TV characters will be there for us every year, if only for a limited number of episodes, might find this shift a little bittersweet all the same.

Original Source -> Why your favorite TV shows are off the air for so long between seasons

via The Conservative Brief