Wis. Stat. 101.58 (2) (j) 2. f.

I was surprised no one had done this yet

maybe we'll get a western-western-mass blog? maybe eventually someone will say 'the great barrington blog doesn't post anything about where i live... i'll make a north egremont blog!'

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.

The best example of this that survives was a funerary monument erected by a Palmyrene soldier named Barates for his wife Regina, who died while he was garrisoned at Hadrian's wall. Now, Barates is a Palmyrene name, but Regina is Latin. What's more, the monument is bilingual: the funerary inscription is written in both Latin and Palmyrene Aramaic. Moreover, these aren't just ditect translations of each other: the Latin inscription follows the typical form of a Dis Manibus epitaph, while the Aramaic inscription is a typical epitaph ending with HḄL. Whoever wrote the inscriptions was fluent in the rituals of both cultures.

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.