ABN Presents...
Photo by Paul Einerhand on Unsplash
"Next Wednesday night, join us for the first full-length TV show written entirely by AI. Here at the American Broadcast Network, we have always embraced the future from the transition to color to our first 8K events. We hope you join us for our next big milestone."
Kyler told the TV to turn off.
"You gonna watch it?" her friend Leah asked.
"Nah, it's gonna suck."
"Isn't that the point though, ironically?" Leah asked, rolling her eyes before turning her attention back to the screen in front of her.
"They're only doing this cause of the writer strike."
"Why are they striking?"
"Full-length shows are a dying medium. Who wants to sit around for half an hour just for a single plot? The jokes aren't funny. The characters are morons. The writers want to change things up, but the network wants to keep appealing to zoomers."
"So they can't leave?"
"The writers are unionized. They don't want to just quit. They want more artistic control. But the writing is forced to appeal to zoomers. Whatever the fans want is exactly what happens. 'Ah I hate my life. Everything is suffering.' I just don't get their humor."
"Maybe the AI will be a nice change of pace then."
"Whatever the AI puts together is going to be trained on existing scripts."
"You think the network would water it down?"
"Probably," Kyler nodded. "You don't need to be a person to write zoomer humor. It's just a bunch of catchphrases."
"Yeet," Leah said ironically.
"Ew," Kyler shook with disgust.
"Still, even if we know it's going to be bad, we should probably see just how bad it is."
"Okay," Kyler agreed reluctantly.
It was bad. The humor was more stilted than before, with cringey catchphrases spoken at inopportune times. Kyler couldn't stop crying. It somehow managed to distill an entire generation of bad culture into a self-contained work of art.
The Internet seemed to agree, with high ratings coming in for the premiere. It helped that it was the only new piece of work that came from Hollywood in a month. Everyone's attention managed to be focused on this one event.
It was inevitable that it would be milked dry. The network decided to air four more episodes, week after week. Sequels were never as good. They tried to make each one thematic, with the second one in space, the third one as a western, and so on. The writing never changed, but the costumes and backgrounds did. These changes distracted from the cringe.
The writer's strike ended soon after. People couldn't be allowed to read a book, of course. The networks had to find new content. The writers were given more creative control, but the networks still had final approval. It was a pyrrhic victory, and one that had a real effect. In a way, Kyler was right. It did spell the death of full-length shows as a medium. Many writers quit their job and were recruited by hardware companies developing hologram media.