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Fine, yes there are other factors contributing to the dissolution of our shared social fabric.
Most of them are probably more meaningful.
Cliffhangers youd been stewing over since May were finally resolved.
Spring was the reverse: Your favorite shows were about to take a break.
Once summer hit, new episodes mostly stopped.
It was a collective sagging, an exhalation.
It was deliberate doldrums.
Whennew TV did premiere in the summer, it was operating under a different set of expectations.
That June was also the moment forPersons Unknown, a show (starring Chadwick Boseman!)
in which strangers wake up in a ghost town.
We havent completely lost the Summer TV is silly impulse.
Soon well get a second season ofFBoy Island.
More broadly, shows like this appear all the time now.
Theres nothing aboutThe Final Strawthat could not just as feasibly air on ABC in mid-February.
More important, the rest of TV will not stop.
Disney+ is churning outObi-Wan KenobiandMs.
Its a calendar version of the endless scroll.
Its TV programming that expects our narrative appetites remain constantly whetted and perpetually fulfilled without ever achieving satiety.
Its a self-perpetuating cycle, though.
Doldrums can be good.
But I do think its become much easier to forget that great new TV has value.
Thered be no FOMO because there was nothing to miss.
Summer TV used tomeansomething, damn it!
We deserve to have that meaning back.
