As the showrunner grows his darkly comic satire into a franchise — and spoofs a certain trial and presidential election in the new season — he says he’s fine losing the viewers who just figured out his social agenda: “Go watch something else.”

Brilliant.

That was a fun read, thanks for sharing. I appreciate it when the interviewer is prepared and asks interesting questions.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

But it was a cheap, genre show on an unsexy network, The CW, so even an ensuing string of doubles (Revolution, Timeless) did little to move his needle.

But Kripke crafted a scathing satire of 21st century America where Homelander, the chiseled superhero in the American flag cape, is an authoritarian proxy for Donald Trump.

Critics immediately took a shine, but its commercial success — the most recent season earned more eyeballs than The Rings of Power, with 106 billion minutes viewed in 2022 — made Kripke a priority at the streamer.

Suddenly, we were telling a story about the intersection of celebrity and authoritarianism and how social media and entertainment are used to sell fascism.

It’s happened now almost every season, and we write them sometimes close to two years before they air and again we’ll find that the news is accurately reflecting whatever we’re talking about.

But, especially for young showrunners, I do wish there was still that Syfy channel and CW model of learning how to stretch your dollar, both in terms of writing and producing.

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