Taylor Swift’s Disney series is good news for fans in exactly one way.

Is it possible that the world didn’t need a six-part docuseries about Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour and a three-plus-hour concert film of the tour’s final show, which is of course in addition to the earlier concert film that hit theaters in fall 2023? I tend to think that one or maybe two movies might have been preferable to—hold on while I do the math here—10 full hours of content. But for the last few years, Swift has been producing material at a relentless pace, and her fans have been eagerly consuming it, and that is how we ended up with The End of an Era, the first two episodes of which premiered on Disney+ on Friday.

Though the documentary contains some footage from the lead-up to the tour, filming on the road seems to have started in earnest in August 2024. As the first two episodes show, plenty of compelling events played out on camera from that point forward, including the cancellation of the tour’s Vienna dates due to threats of terrorism and, only slightly less dramatically, the surprise reworking of the whole show to incorporate songs from the album Swift released during the tour, The Tortured Poets Department. But I can’t help lamenting that there isn’t more focus on the first, transformative year of the tour, which encompassed nearly 150 performances from March 2023 to December 2024. Prior to then, Swift didn’t know the “Eras” tour was going to be the all-out cultural phenomenon it became. I’d like to see more of the self-doubt, early creative conversations, logistical breakthroughs, and opening jitters that went into it. But more than anything, I want to know where her head was during those months, personally and professionally.

In the same way 1936 was a pivotal year in England’s history—the Year of Three Kings, when one king died, another abdicated, and a third was installed—for Swift, 2023 was the Year of Three Boyfriends. In quick succession, Swift announced the end of her six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn, she brought her fan base to the brink of mutiny by spending a few intense weeks linked to The 1975’s frontman Matty Healy, and she kicked off her very public romance with her now-fiancé, Travis Kelce.

Through it all, she had to show up to work several nights a week with a smile on her face and perform for hundreds of thousands of fans. What was that like? A documentary can theoretically offer insight into an entertainer’s headspace in a way songs like “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” which explores some of this terrain, cannot. There are still four episodes of this series to go, but forgive me for suspecting that The End of an Era won’t diverge too far from the “publicist-approved pop star documentary” formula that’s been established over the last decade or so. With each one of these movies, we continue to stray from the light of the moment in Katy Perry: Part of Me when Perry goes seamlessly from sobbing backstage about the end of her marriage to donning a costume adorned with spinning peppermints and picking up a mic.

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Still, the first two episodes of The End of an Era contain morsels that will no doubt nourish Swift’s fandom. We see Swift trying to listen to an audiobook to sooth her nerves as she returns to the tour after those canceled Vienna shows. The footage of her contemplating meeting with the families of victims of another attack, this one not foiled, at a Swift-themed dance class in Liverpool, is genuinely heartbreaking. The pre- and post-show phone calls she makes on camera to Kelce offer a cute peek at their relationship, never mind that I think he must have at been at least slightly exaggerating how funny he found her line comparing her mother to his football coach. Ed Sheeran and Florence Welch show up to rehearse “Eras” tour cameos. We meet and spend time with Swift’s choreographers and dancers. Swift admits, in a sound bite that will no doubt vindicate many, that she has to learn choreography by linking it to lyrics, because following eight counts has never worked for her. At all times, she is the consummate professional you expect her to be, gracious and hardworking, a benevolent and never-erring princess of pop. Looking forward to the other four episodes, a little intrigue, a little messiness, the kind she lets loose in her score-settling songs, would be a welcome diversion.

There isn’t nearly as much pressure on the release of this documentary as there was on The Life of a Showgirl, the album Swift put out in October. Though Swift’s career shows no signs of waning numbers-wise, after that album especially, critics and those of her fans who are capable of perceiving her as less than perfect have seemingly grown a little weary of both the amount and quality of her music. When she releases an album, it’s everywhere, and nearly impossible to ignore, but for anyone who’s had enough of Swift for the moment, this doc should be blessedly avoidable, a gift for the Swifties that everyone else should feel fine about skipping. Enjoy sitting this one out if that’s what you choose, but don’t expect it to last. The end of an era means the next one will be here before we know it.

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