Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 05/03/24

Better Late than Saturday Edition

The Administration staff has had their hands full this week as some sort of gastro-intestinal issue forced some bunker residents into an early bedtime in order to attempt restful sleep. It more or less worked, but the “nervous” stomach continues apace and shows no signs of going away anytime soon. In the past, this could be written off as my gut-flora being out of whack, which is such a science fiction-sounding thing to say, doesn’t it?  “My gut flora has turned carnivorous! Phase it out of my intestines, quick!” Bunker Ops is convinced that it’s just stress. She’s probably right.

Proof of life, 5/3/24. Also, Gastric Distress.

YouTubery

Hey, Kids! Do you like Robert E. Howard’s Conan? Check out this here video, all about Conan the Cimmerian/Barbarian, on the new Conan the Barbarian channel. Why am I bringing this up? Because I was interviewed for it! Go on, watch it. It’s only twelve minutes long. And while you’re there, be sure to “Like” and “Subscribe.”

---

Contract Signed

Well, it’s official; I’m going to be co-editing an anthology for Baen books. I can’t say anything else right now, but when there’s more to reveal, I will do so with a flourish straight out of the David Copperfield playbook. I can say that it’s an idea I’ve been shopping around and noodling on for a while now, so there’s a feeling of disbelief to the project, like, “Wait, we’re finally doing it? Aw, wow...”

---

Keeping Up with the Nielsens

It’s Friday, which means all of the streaming platforms have updated their offerings with new series, new movies, exclusive shows and documentaries, and even a bunch of reality television. Theaters nationwide are doing boffo with The Fall Guy, starring Ryan “The Hot Gos” Gosling and America’s British Sweetheart, Emily Blunt. All of the networks and the cable channels have their newest shows and somewhat new movies just to pad everything out.

Great logo.

I’m curious: how do YOU keep up with it all? I think there’s some fantastic shows and movies on hand at any given time, but the signal to noise ratio is very high. We don’t all watch the same shows anymore, never mind which platforms we’re paying for and which ones we aren’t.

Friend of the Bunker and Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Emeritus Larry Young posted this article earlier in the week, and it snapped into the slot car racetrack that is my brain and has been zipping around in circles ever since. I’d already been thinking about some things along this vector, but this article galvanized me.

‘Avengers’ Directors Say Marvel’s Recent Problems Aren’t Due to Superhero Fatigue but a ‘Big Generational Divide About How You Consume Media.'

I think the Russo Brothers have stumbled into the crux of the issue: we’re fatigued. We can’t keep up with it all. And moreover, since we’re not all watching the same thing, we don’t have a way to properly contextualize the story. I haven’t heard anyone say anything about the HBO series, The Girls on the Bus. It’s got people in it that I love, and the series is entertaining if you like shows that tell you how the sausage gets made. This is a series that HBO would have put forward and promoted the hell of it, aiming at the Girls/Sex in the City demographic, but at it is, I feel like we’re the only people watching it. And I pay attention! I try to keep up! But shit still gets by me all the time.

The problem lies with the delivery system. We still carry this prejudice against “teevee shows” as being inferior to film in every way. This has been refuted often in the 21st century, but even subscribing to a premium channel didn’t always mean that it was award-worthy content *cough*Skinamax*cough*

If everything is on TV, as streaming content, then none of it is special or noteworthy. That’s absurd, of course, but there is no difference in the Ripley series and the Pitch Perfect movie, because it’s all right there, right now, and there’s no way for us to tell what’s worth the effort until we’ve made the effort. In the absence of a real marketing campaign, the platforms and media conglomerates seem to be relying on the presence of ads within their digital domain and word of mouth to get their projects into the eye holes of the people that want and need it. Streaming is unintentionally homogenizing entertainment by making everything special when it’s clearly not.

I don’t watch a lot of bad TV, not anymore. If I get into a show and find myself yelling at the screen, I turn it off and don’t finish it. Also, “Bad” is relative, in that you can stack up the worst show on Netflix against any sitcom from 1980 and it will be demonstrably better in every category. It might still suck, but there’s some perspective to employ when you’re thinking about this stuff.

Back in the 20th century, we took what they gave us and we were thankful for it. Of course there was stuff in every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that we loved and also hated. We weren’t inundated with this stuff, though, remember? Sci-Fi TV was slim pickings. Super Heroes? Getthefuckouttahere with that David Hasselhoff Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. movie. Please. There was no Star Wars on TV. There was some anime in the 90s but you had to stay up past midnight on Adult Swim to see it.

So when something good came out, whether it was a movie or a TV show, we all swarmed it, because we wanted something good for a change. Or, you know, we all got shorted together and could complain about how bad it sucked, too. Either way.

Now? I see people talking about something they watched, and if they liked it, you know, maybe their post will encourage me to see it out. Maybe. If they didn’t like it, you know the third or fourth comment every single time is someone posting that meme that says “Shhhhh. Let people enjoy things.” Maybe the last thing we all talked about as a nation was the MCU and Avengers: Endgame. Before that? Game of Thrones?

How do you keep up? Or do you? What do you do in order to filter out the amount of new stuff and find the thing that you will love for seven to ten days afterward? Drop me a line and let’s see if we can come up with a better way to stay caught up.

Mark Finn is one of the most opinionated and influential experts on Robert E. Howard in the state of Texas. He’s an author out of largesse rather than as a vocation and writes stories because he can’t play the guitar. He loves gorillas, values a well-placed conversational movie quote, and treasures the picaresque in literature. Annoyed with people’s misunderstanding of popular culture, he took it upon himself to buy a movie theater so he could lord it over every film student on the Internet. He likes to say, “If three people tell you you’re drunk, go lie down.”