Mike Schur

Yeah.

Which is, to be very clear, what, Joe?

I can't wake up!

Wake me up inside!

Say!

Not quite like a feudal lord, but like a...

Who was in charge of making sure the serfs did all of their daily labor and then reported up to the lord?

Yay, verily.

So I was a member of the WGA negotiating committee in 2023 when the WGA and then SAG both went on strike.

WGA for five months, SAG for a little bit longer.

And the issues that we were facing then, which we're still facing now, are a massive industry contraction is the main one.

what has now been called peak TV kind of hit around 2018, 2019, something like that.

And since then, you know, long before COVID and the results of that, you know, work stoppage on the industry, everything was contracting.

The companies were cutting back dramatically on the number of shows they made, number of movies they made.

COVID sort of accelerated that and the strikes were in response to that contraction.

And

The companies that make stuff are no different from any other company.

They're obsessed with efficiency.

They're obsessed with cost cutting and saving.

And that means that they were looking constantly for ways to do more with less, as The Wire season five would have said.