peak cinema

On the internet, you will see people from ages 14 through 40, praising media with phrases such as "Absolute cinema" or "Peak".

this mcdonalds playplace is giving ozymandias

This weekend, I went to a rest stop that had not one, but two statues of Ronald McDonald, the McDonalds mascot. One was of the kindly clown reclining on a bench with an arm outstretched, from an era where this would make for a fun polaroid photo. The other was a looming, chrome-painted statue, gazing down from too high above.

These are from a bygone era of American economic prosperity wherein the cheapest food on the market (1) was actually kind of tasty and (2) could afford to include luxuries such as an amusement playgrounds with tube slides and ball pits and statues, alongside high-quality toys.

McDonalds nowadays, however, is on the decline. Prices increase as quantity and quality decreases. McDonalds has "peaked".

The "peak" is a point of lamentation: This is the best things are ever going to get.

unsustainable

"The Studio" is an Apple TV show about how the sausage is made in Hollywood. In an interview I can't find, they discussed how they intentionally showed off the "temples of industry" (or something like that), from an era when Hollywood was getting hilarious bonkers amount of investment.

Apple TV is currently pumping an unsustainable amount of money into their shows, with the intent of making some of the best shows on television. Severance isn't good just because of the actors chops, the interesting premise, and all that investment. It's also because they're spending $20,000,000 per episode and can afford many more retakes than would make sense.

Those $20,000,000 per episode reflects a vast economic supply chain into making the show the best it possibly could be This can not be sustained- it needs to get worse eventually. Even for the long-term unsustainable reality of capitalism, Apple can only loss-lead for so long.

That's not to mention the extractive element of it. Severance is a really good show! But it also requires sweatshop slave labor half a planet away in order to exist. Using the average global salary of ~$10,000 USD as a rough metric to normalize against, and assuming 40 years of average economic output per person, that's about 50 peoples lifetimes per episode of Severance produced.

This is a post about how "you can only loss-lead for so long"- it's possible capitalism can continue for 200 more years more or less the same. But it's worth mentioning the extractive element.

It is very possible that "Severance" or "Pluribus" will join the ranks of "peak television"-- an era we will look back on in the future, and think about as the height of entertainment.

on a budget

"Citizen Kane" is widely hailed as one of the best movies ever, and they have a point. It's really good, but also, could be pretty cheaply produced today.

One very good movie I saw recently was One Cut of the Dead, produced for only $25,000 USD , or ¥3 million yen.

This is a short section just to say, "You can have good shows on a budget". I bet Severance would be 95% as good on just 10% of the budget.

Ozymandias, again

Ozymandias was one of the final episodes in Breaking Bad, and was one of the last episodes before streaming took over. For as bad as Reddit got about the show, it is still one of the best shows.

Being a veritable event, you had to sit down and watch shows as they aired. Commercial breaks were sprints to prepare snacks and food, to pee, etc. such that you don't miss a single shot.

Breaking Bad, taking hints from Homestuck, returned after a long break for a Season 5 Part 2. Each episode aired weekly, but Ozymandias was really the start of the end of the series.

This might be around where TV will have peaked. I think streaming is better, sure, but season finale parties are exceedingly rare and only reserved for the very best shows, (like Severance). Rather than a sharp point, it'll be a multi-decade summit.

"Peak"

Anyways, all I mean to say is "peak" should mean "This is the best it's ever been and the best it's ever going to get". Someone send this to Redditors please thank u