In a television landscape dominated by streaming platforms and the tech companies that own them, it can difficult to know what a genuine hit looks like. Sometimes the streamers will deign to release metrics of their own that can be opaque at best. (How many minutes watched makes a show popular?) Otherwise, there’s the Emmy Awards, which is certain kind of popularity measure — just one that only considers the opinions of TV professionals.
There is, however, another way that television creators can learn that the project they’ve spent months on is actually connecting with its intended audience.
The phone starts ringing.
For the makers of Apple TV’s freshman horror-comedy Widow’s Bay, the calls were certainly unexpected, but not of the variety that plagued Kate O’Flynn’s Patricia when she was a teen (or so she says).
“It’s really special when you have friends reach out to you who you did not tell you worked on the show,” picture editor Jen Bryson told Gold Derby. “They say, ‘I saw your name in the credits of the show that I love!’ I think that’s like the most special.”
The sentiment was shared by others on the show’s crew, including Bryson’s colleague in the edit bay, Kyle Reiter. “Or you hear from people you haven’t heard from in years, and they’re like, ‘Oh my God! Widow’s Bay‘s amazing!'” he said.
For many of the people who worked on the show, those calls are part of a culmination of months of work — work that’s often done without being completely sure that one’s instincts of an project’s quality are correct. “There’s this idea of working on something,” score mixer Scott Smith said. “We all think it’s good as we’re doing it, and we hope that it’s perceived that way. I know for me, as I was on it, , ‘Yeah, this seems special. It truly does.'”
But even with those inklings, there’s never a guarantee in a marketplace as crowded as streaming TV. For casting director Emily Buntyn, her concerns about Widow’s Bay‘s horror leanings could scare off some potential viewers — that is, until about mid-season. “I wouldn’t say [it was] a slow burn, but around mid season is when really started to hear from people from every facet of my life,” she said, before asking her fellow crew members to way in. “I don’t know about you guys, but the word I get told a lot is ‘obsessed.’ They’re obsessed.”
This article and video are presented by Apple TV.
