{"id":345475,"date":"2025-12-13T01:09:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/345475\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T01:09:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:09:05","slug":"taylor-swifts-disney-series-is-good-news-for-fans-in-exactly-one-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/345475\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift\u2019s Disney series is good news for fans in exactly one way."},"content":{"rendered":"

Is it possible that the world didn\u2019t need a six-part docuseries about Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cEras\u201d tour and a three-plus-hour concert film of the tour\u2019s 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\u2014hold on while I do the math here\u201410 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019t help lamenting that there isn\u2019t 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\u2019t know the \u201cEras\u201d tour was going to be the all-out cultural phenomenon it became. I\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n

In the same way 1936 was a pivotal year in England\u2019s history\u2014the Year of Three Kings, when one king died, another abdicated, and a third was installed\u2014for 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\u2019s frontman Matty Healy, and she kicked off her very public romance with her now-fianc\u00e9, Travis Kelce.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s headspace in a way songs like \u201cI Can Do It With a Broken Heart,\u201d 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\u2019t diverge too far from the \u201cpublicist-approved pop star documentary<\/a>\u201d formula that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Slate Staff
\n The 10 Best TV Shows of 2025
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The New Knives Out Isn\u2019t Just a Return to Form. It\u2019s a Miraculous Self-Reinvention.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Michigan Football Story Is Getting Worse By the Second. There\u2019s Only One Solution.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Still, the first two episodes of The End of an Era contain morsels that will no doubt nourish Swift\u2019s 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<\/a> 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 \u201cEras\u201d tour cameos. We meet and spend time with Swift\u2019s 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<\/a>, would be a welcome diversion.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t nearly as much pressure on the release of this documentary as there was on The Life of a Showgirl<\/a>, the album Swift put out in October. Though Swift\u2019s 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\u2019s everywhere, and nearly impossible to ignore, but for anyone who\u2019s 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\u2019s what you choose, but don\u2019t expect it to last. The end of an era means the next one will be here before we know it.<\/p>\n

Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is it possible that the world didn\u2019t need a six-part docuseries about Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cEras\u201d tour and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[3716,88,216,4915,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-345475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-disney","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-taylor-swift","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}