The Boys is one of a bunch of shows heading toward a finale by the end of May.
Photo by Jasper Savage/Amazon Prime Video
Outside of various feds trying to pressure Disney into censoring and/or firing Jimmy Kimmel (which, thankfully, Disney has made no move to do), last week was a little bit quiet in the TV world. That’s not going to last.
How do I know this? Because the calendar now says May, and May is just about always a hectic month in the business. Several things come together to make the month a bonanza of happenings for pop culture enthusiasts and kind of a pain in the ass for the people who cover the business (those two groups, admittedly, have a pretty significant overlap).
To start, the end of the traditional TV season is approaching. Network shows are airing their final episodes in the next few weeks (and a fair number have already finished), which means (potentially) big stories, cliffhangers or other shakeups.
May 31 is also the last day for shows to be eligible to submit for this year’s Emmys. Network shows aren’t necessarily big players at the Emmys nowadays, but several streaming and premium (i.e., HBO) shows that premiered in April are set up to come in just under that deadline — and occasionally needing creative scheduling to do so. That adds to the crush of things we need to keep up with in the month.
Finally, next week will bring the annual upfront showcases for media companies to sell their portfolios to advertisers. They typically generate a bunch of news too.
I’m not complaining (much), mind you. From a work standpoint, it’s a stressful few weeks. But it can be a lot of fun too.
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First, the end of the traditional season. No one has yet heeded my call to make the TV year line up with the calendar, so we have a number of season finales coming between now and Memorial Day. We already know that a couple of core cast members are leaving Grey’s Anatomy in its season finale, and it’s a good bet that there’ll be some wild things happen on some other shows as well. The longest-running sitcom currently on the air, CBS’ The Neighborhood, is also bowing out after eight seasons, though it will probably do a “wrap everyone’s story up” kind of ending after that long. Survivor’s all-star 50th season is also entering its end stages.
Hacks, Euphoria, The Boys, The Testaments and Margo’s Got Money Troubles — all potential Emmy contenders — are barreling toward their finales too. HBO Max had to get a little creative to make sure Hacks will finish its season before the Emmy deadline, streaming two episodes on April 30 and two more on May 7 so that the series finale will run on May 28 (why they didn’t just start the season a little sooner, I couldn’t tell you). Netflix will also release a couple shows that could have an outside shot at some Emmy nominations — The Boroughs and The Four Seasons — in the final 10 days of the month. No scheduling games there, since Netflix binge-releases most of its shows, but the timing of those premieres is very likely not an accident.
As all that’s playing out, the upfronts will take place next week. This string of events — so named because media companies are trying to sell ad time up front, before the next season starts — used to belong to the broadcast networks, which would be ordering a bunch of new series, renewing some current shows and canceling others in the week leading up to them. Not so much anymore: Most renewals and cancellations are already done, and only NBC made a significant number of pilots this year. Some news on those pilots will likely come this week, but the frenzy of years past isn’t a thing anymore.
Networks also aren’t center stage at the upfront presentations anymore either. Fox, NBCUniversal and Disney will spend a lot of time talking about streaming, sports and news at their shows for advertisers next week, because that’s where the bulk of viewers are and thus where most of the money is. Amazon and Netflix will have events the week of May 11 too, and Warner Bros. Discovery will probably be hosting its last upfront before getting subsumed into Paramount Skydance. There will likely be a bunch of announcements of new programming and some other kinds of news, a lot of which I’ll cover at the day job and expand on here. And I’ll try to touch some grass here and there too.
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