In this What's On Disney Plus Podcast episode, Roger discusses some of today's biggest Disney+ news, including:
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Come on up, we're going to be talking about Star Wars skeleton crew, plus also some major changes at Disney with a massive amount of layoffs. But before we go any further make sure you do hit that subscribe button to keep up with the ladies Disney Plus News. Hey if you want to start your hear from what's on Disney Plus.com, it's time for a quick Disney Plus News roundup. Let's start off talking about a brand new Disney Plus series skeleton crew. So this is a new Star Wars show that will be coming to Disney Plus on Tuesday the 3rd of December. Looks like it's going to be a prime time release. That means 6pm Pacific coast, 9pm on the eastern coast. Because here in the UK it was announced it's coming on the 4th. So generally that's usually indicates I would expect this show to get a prime time release. It just kind of makes sense. You know they've been doing it for a while. But yeah so we haven't got to wait too long to the next big Star Wars series. Obviously we've got Agatha all along dropping in September. I thought that would be about right. We're going to space it out between them. But yeah so we'll be getting new episodes of the show. And then that'll be running in through December and into January. Because I don't think yet we know how many episodes, 6 or 8s on that. But I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with this show. The skeleton crew follows the journey of four kids who make a mysterious discovery on a seamlessly safe home planet. Then get lost in a strange and dangerous galaxy. Finding their way home and meeting unlikely allies and enemies will be the greatest adventure they have ever imagined. This brand new series stars Jude Law. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get to see the first teaser trailer during the upcoming D23 event. You know if you're going to do a big announcement and thing about Star Wars that would seem like me. And the fact that they started putting out some first look images. Kind of getting things teased. We've got the date. Yeah that's kind of where my gut is though. They'll probably release the video just after I've put this video. Probably no doubt. But nevertheless I think this show looks very exciting. I got to see a little bit of this. A little bit of trailer at last year's Star Wars celebration event which was quite a while ago. So looking forward to it. Definitely got much more of a kid vibe. Obviously this one's got three main kids in there running around. And yeah you know the images and stuff that we've seen show that. And I think this is where you know this show is going to come a little bit under a little bit of scrutiny because there is going to be a massive online backlash because this is a show aimed at kids. A bit like Star Wars actually is. And this is what gets me of you look back at Phantom Menace. You look at I'm returning the Jedi. They were very much focused on kids. You know they're you know with the Ewoks and all this kind of stuff. And this show is kind of leaning in on that. When I saw the teaser trailer I kind of thought you know Goonies, ET, that kind of vibe from the 80s. This looks like this is going to have it. Now I think there's going to be a lot of add-ups that will probably like this fit your theme. But if you're out of something more serious something more like and/or this doesn't look like we're going to be the show for you. And I'm hoping it kind of has that core feeling of being back to classic Star Wars. And I'm really hoping we see a little bit of this in this show. Obviously I think it's going to draw some criticism but at the same time we have to remember exactly what Star Wars was when they actually originally created it. And you know what even George Lucas has said about the fact that it's a show or a film aimed at kids. And this show definitely kind of feels that waste. But let me know are you looking forward watching the skeleton crew? Love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below. Also today even though the series isn't out for a few months, LEGO has released a brand new set. So you can pick it up as about 125 quid. It comes with over 1000 pieces and you've got the main spaceship and you've got all the little characters and stuff. Interesting that this set is out now rather than waiting until December. Now this show originally was supposed to come out on Disney Plus last year. It got delayed. So obviously the set was ready ready to go and so therefore they put it out there. Personally it would have just felt like it might as well just put it out maybe November, December. It feels very early. I'm sure it's just going to sit on shelves as no one going to clue what this thing is. But when the show actually does then come out we're then going to be in a great position where people can kind of pick it up. But also maybe when the trailer breaks next week at D23 hopefully people might be a bit more inclined to pick the set up. But yeah so if you like to look it up the set looks a little bit funny and to like to kind of know a little bit more about the spaceship and stuff. Kind of do like buying a big Star Wars spaceship Lego sets. But let me know. You're going to pick this one up. We're going to wait until the series comes out. Love to hear your thoughts on this as well. Shifting gears now. A bit of a change in tone. Unfortunately there's been some bad news overnight with Disney Entertainment revealing that they have laid off about 140 members of staff which represents about 2% of the workforce. The majority of these over 60 of them has happened at National Geographic which makes up about 13% of the force. There's also been other cuts at free form also in marketing publicity and also some big changes with some of the big execs for like Hulu and stuff. This is all part of a plan that's been in place for a while. These were apparently been planned for a couple of months and it continues that trend of that we've seen since Bob Iger return back in 2022 where he's been cutting staff. We needed to reduce thousands of jobs as a part of the big thing of trying to get their cost down. A lot of the removals and layoffs were down to changes in linear in the way that they're moving forward. The linear networks have got too many staff including how much money they're bringing in and they're just streamlining and cutting back and stuff. The teams are also going to be existing but we are really seeing now this kind of move away from linear. So first off with like free form. I'm not entirely surprised that this is happening because I think this is a dead brand, a dead channel. At some point there's going to be some other major carriage deals done and I'm sure that free form is just going to get lost because it's already gone from spectrum. I suspect the other ones are going to go. It's a dead channel, dead brand. I don't see much point of keeping that one around. National Geographic is really disappointing that so many people have been let go. I love the documentaries and stuff that come out of there that I think they're really good but at the same time you can see the same thing with the spectrum deal and that's probably going to impact other channels as well. If they've got less channels, they aren't going to need as many people. They're making less content and obviously they're focused on Disney Plus and they're not going to be stopping stuff but we're really seeing them focusing on quality over quantity and they are just sliding back and I think this is going to have an impact in the long run on how many shows get released on Disney Plus and Hulu and obviously on the linear channel as well but we have seen them just drastically pulling back and this is just another element of this continued train where linear is dying and linear is getting smaller and they can't justify the costs of Vogue. I do think Disney is at this weird thing where they have to decide which way to go and I don't know it's a very odd situation none of them. Netflix and Amazon haven't got this whole legacy stuff to deal with and on one hand it's still bringing in money but while that money is dropping down they're going to have to kind of balance the books and stuff so it's a shame and obviously hearts go out to those that are affected by this but I'm sure there's going to be some more in the future especially as linear just continues to drop off but again it just continues to show that just less stuff is going to be hitting our screens as they just cut back as you know they look for profitability and realize that they just can't keep maintaining the level of content that they were creating at the cost that they were doing so but let me know what you think of this I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below. Let's now jump into a comment of the day I've actually got two that I want to jump in on with reference to some of my predictions from the D23 yesterday Dylan asked do you think we'll get some news on the Filius infrared reboot and so I think we will definitely be finding out some information on this series because there is actually going to be a separate panel taking place on Friday morning at the D23 in the back lot stage so if you're the creators there they're going to be talking about it so there's definitely going to be news coming out of there which is why I didn't include it in the main presentation because it's I don't think they're going to mention it because they've got that little panel whether or not that lap panel gets live streamed because it's on one of the smaller stages maybe but yeah I'm pretty sure we will be getting some information as I said Dave hey I've got their own special panel um on the Friday morning let's now jump into a second question kind of on a similar point as hopefully they'll talk about the Marvel animated slate for like eyes of a condo your favorite neighborhood spider-man and what if season three and there it is there will be some information coming out about the upcoming animation slate from Marvel at D23 because they're also going to have their own special presentation panel in the main hall at the Anaheim convention center on Saturday around lunchtime they're going to be showing off information on X-Men 97 the second season eyes of a condo what if so there is going to be an entirely other panel for the animation side so getting that probably why we won't see any of it in the main presentation in the on the center because they've got to have their own special one hopefully we get to see some of the information but yeah we're definitely going to get that um sort of details and stuff on these shows in that panel on the Saturday but let me know which one you're most looking forward to I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below go check us out over at what's on Disney Plus dot com like follow and subscribe and I shall see you guys soon. Later. [BLANK_AUDIO]
