The regulars
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10 chaotic questions with Michael Theo: ‘I want to be on Dancing with the Stars! Would a top hat be too much?’
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The moment I knew: He loved to travel, I had a fear of flying. I expected him to scull his beer and wish me well
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Leading questions: ‘My sister-in-law is nearly 40 but cannot handle losing at board games. What can I do?’
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Stream team: The Twilight Zone, the spooky supernatural series that changed pop culture forever
We can’t stop talking about: microdramas
Alyx Gorman: For the uninitiated, what is a microdrama?
Ima Caldwell: Television distilled, for your dopamine-fiending pleasure! A microdrama is usually an episodic series filmed (or reframed) in portrait orientation, for phone screens. Each instalment clocks in at around 60-90 seconds and they’re aired to social media and on specialised microdrama streaming apps. They’re generally packed with enough plot twists to make daytime television look like slow cinema. One producer described them as “soap operas on cocaine”. Maybe the sort of thing you’d end up watching drunk at 2am.
Alyx: I downloaded ReelShort the other day and was kind of shocked at the content. Forced marriage mafia plotlines; Secretly Pregnant by the Homeless Billionaire. It basically looked like the greatest hits (and misses) of Kindle Unlimited’s alpha male romance charts. Is the Neighbours microdrama going to be that hectic?
Ima: You probably won’t see Margot Robbie’s character, Donna Freedman, fated to carry an heir for her crypto-billionaire werewolf on Ramsay Street, or pregnant by her Ex’s Professor Dad anytime soon. Neighbours is being recut for a vertical video series, after producer Fremantle struck a deal with company RoseBerry Media – which will adapt and distribute the show on its Epis streaming platform. Robbie’s 2008-11 storylines will be sliced into morsels by an AI-assisted production tool called RedSnapper, which both companies insist is used with human oversight. While it may lack the high highs of original microdramas, like Revenge of XXL Wife, it will be stripped of any slow moments.
The real drama here is off screen. Longtime Neighbours castmates are annoyed that their work is being algorithmically cropped without consultation. Whether that translates into addictive viewing remains to be seen – there’s a risk it ends up as enjoyable as an unskippable ad.
Alyx: Has this kind of recutting happened to other soaps?
Ima: Not officially on this scale, although we must not forget fans have already spent years cobbling together bootleg supercuts of their favourite soaps for social media. It’s interesting that a legacy production house has agreed to having its back catalogue used like this, though we’ve seen similar recuts elsewhere. There was Paramount’s chop of Mean Girls into 23 parts for TikTok, and an app recently reframed Alfred Hitchcock’s silent thriller The Lodger into short clips, with critics asking whether Psycho on Snapchat was next.
The hope is that microdramas will reinvigorate a struggling TV sector, but when studios start feeding archive tape into editing bots to avoid paying writers and actors fresh rates for new stories, it doesn’t exactly scream innovation.
Alyx: Do we know much about who is watching microdramas? And how these shows make money?
Ima: There’s not one demographic, because there’s no age limit on a diminishing attention span. Apps like ReelShort and DramaBox pull huge audiences of all ages, with the global market expected to be worth $26bn by 2030.
In China, smartphone-friendly duanju (“short drama”) shows reportedly generated US$7bn in 2024, overtaking the country’s domestic box office for the first time.
Meanwhile in an ever-shrinking Hollywood, with studios chasing TikTok audiences, microdramas are expected to generate $1.5bn in US revenue this year, according to Omdia.
The monetisation model for many microdramas is comparable to those “free-to-play” mobile games you see in pop-up ads. Platforms will show the first five or 10 episodes for free to get you hooked, build to a cliffhanger, then slam down a paywall. If you want to see whether a wicked stepmother can conquer the mafia boss father and son, it’s going to cost. That fee might only be around 30-50c an episode, but by the time you’ve tapped your way through all 80 minutes, it might add up to $40 – which is more than most monthly streaming platform subscriptions.
Your week ahead
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What to watch | While we all continue being loudly impatient for You Can See Everything to be released in Australia, Hannah J Davies recommends revisiting the 2022 series The Dropout, which stars a brilliant Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes – and which I didn’t realise until reading this piece was a TV adaptation of a podcast that I’m now going to listen to too. – Steph Harmon, culture editor
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What to listen to | Sampa the Great’s world-class third album fuses hip hop with a deeper exploration of her family connection to Zamrock. Rewarding repeat listens, it revels in charisma, defiance and cheek – and a track that hits like a truck. – SH
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What to read | The astonishing artist-author Shaun Tan is back with yet another book that blurs the line between children’s literature and adults’. Homecoming is a vivid fable about a human girl who lives in a world of strange creatures, who is confronted when a human stranger suddenly arrives to tell her that she doesn’t belong there. We’ve called it a “masterpiece”. – Sian Cain, deputy culture editor
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What to cook | There’s a strawberry glut incoming, and Anna Jones’ strawberry shortcakes with zesty creme fraiche are a fresher, more summery take on scones and jam. – Yvonne C Lam, deputy lifestyle editor
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What to book | Ken Russell’s 1971 film The Devils is in cinemas, restored and uncut for the first time after years of censorship. Oliver Reed stars as a sexually magnetic French priest and Vanessa Redgrave is the jilted nun who accuses him of being demonic, with horrifying, hypnotic results. And Derek Jarman did the set design! What more could you want? – SC
Wishlist
I wasn’t planning a Chindōgu summer, until I discovered the existence of head hammocks. Miami brand Vacation makes a $55 pillow with legs, while Australian brand the Z Hut’s options are even more ridiculous, and come with built-in shade. They are sublimely silly and I would very much like to try one. – AG
Open tabs
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With all the speculation about the demise of David Jones, this September conversation between Bloomingdale’s CEO Olivier Bron and Monocle’s Tyler Brûlé is worth a listen. Thumbing their nose at the death of the department store, Bron brags, “Right now, we’re renovating our flagship in New York to differentiate it from anything else that you can experience in the US.” Big talk, but Bloomingdale’s is currently enjoying a “steady stream of positive growth figures,” so they’re doing something right. DJs, take note. – Sophie Black, features editor
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I like the subversion of this story by Douglas Smith, about a translation project reinterpreting an early Australian film. In 1950 producers cast Anangu actors as members of a fictitious tribe, telling them to talk as if no one would understand. All these years later, linguists and First Nations language speakers have revealed a second story. – IC
Tell us…
Have you stumbled across any microdramas in your feed? Or even binged a few? Let me know what you saw, and what you thought about it by replying to this email or contacting me via savedforsunday@theguardian.com
