“I cry a lot but I am so productive, it’s an art,” Taylor Swift crooned on “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart”. Now, we see exactly how productive. Fresh off the launch of her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, as well as the accompanying big-screen release, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, she’s already back with a one-two punch: The End of an Era, a new six-part, behind-the-scenes docuseries about The Eras Tour, and The Final Show, a new concert film, which, unlike The Eras Tour movie, will include The Tortured Poets Department set in its entirety.
In the Disney+ trailer announcing both projects, we see Taylor being led to the stage in her glittering dress for the “Enchanted” set. “People like to talk about phenomenons,” she says in voiceover. “Almost as if it was pieces falling into place. As if it just happened.” Cue flashes of rehearsal footage, Swift enjoying downtime with her mum, kissing her now-fiancé Travis Kelce backstage, boards with song titles on them, intense training sessions at the gym, costume changes, home videos of her as a little girl playing the piano with her grandma, and cameos from everyone from her cats to Sabrina Carpenter, Ed Sheeran, Florence Welch and Gracie Abrams. “We have broken every single record you can break with this tour,” she continues. “The only thing left, is to close the book.”
Fittingly, the trailer ends with Taylor running herself a bath. “I’ll not be able to get to sleep,” she tells the camera, while wiping off her make-up and pulling off her fake eyelashes. “I can’t come down. I watch tonnes of TV, I eat room service in bed, I sign a box of 2,000 CDs and then I’m tired. Then we do the whole thing again.” This kind of post-mayhem downtime is, of course, what inspired The Life of a Showgirl – and it’s why Swift is literally in a bathtub on the cover of this album.
The Final Show was directed by Glenn Weiss, and filmed in Vancouver, while The End of an Era was helmed by Don Argott, with Sheena M Joyce co-directing. The former will be streaming from 12 December, along with the first two episodes of the latter. After that, two episodes of the show will drop each week, ending on Boxing Day. (And of course Taylor announced this on 13 October.)
“It was the end of an era and we knew it,” Swift wrote on Instagram. “We wanted to remember every moment leading up to the culmination of the most important and intense chapter of our lives, so we allowed filmmakers to capture this tour and all the stories woven throughout it as it wound down. And to film the final show in its entirety.”
The Disney log line promises “unprecedented access” and “an intimate look at Taylor’s life”, but just how close will fans be able to get? Will we see the development of the tour from its very inception, including how and why each song was chosen and what was left on the cutting room floor? Will we get a glimpse of the making of The Tortured Poets Department and The Life of a Showgirl? And what about Swift’s break-up with Joe Alwyn, brief relationship with Matty Healy, and whirlwind romance with Travis, all of which, confoundingly, occurred during this tour? Well, we’ll find out in two months.