The fate of television according to my experience at Fan Expo Philadelphia

It has been several years since my last comic convention but this year I intend to change that a bit. Over the past weekend, Star Wars weekend to be exact, my husband and I attended Fan Expo Philadelphia for the first time.

Located at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, fans of all kinds and ages gathered together to enjoy panels, meet and greets, shopping, and overall leave the real world behind to enjoy their fandom. Although the convention itself was a lot of fun as we got to explore unique booths, shop from artists, and truly immerse ourselves in the glory of fandoms (the Deadpool cosplayers never disappoint), there was one sour note.

As you might have guessed by the title of my article, my husband and I had an eye-opening experience when it came to the panels. We got to sit in and listen to the likes of talented actors and actresses such as Emily Swallow (The Mentalist, The Mandalorian), Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy, Lawmen: Bass Reeves), and Felicia Day (Supernatural, Tim Travers & the Time Travelers Paradox), Alan Tudyk (Moana, Resident Alien) and learned a lot about the business and the performers themselves.

But amongst all the laughs and reminiscing, the fate of television seemed to be a common theme. In a world where inflation is affecting everyone and streaming services continue to not only spawn, but raise prices and cancel shows left and right, you can see where this is going.

What happens now?

Will TV shows like Resident Alien be renewed? Not even Alan knew, and it was obvious it troubled him.

Will Disney+ release less Star Wars content, specifically TV shows? Well, maybe, I mean the fact there will be a Mandalorian film instead of a season 4 does seem to answer that question.

But Emily doesn't even know if she'll be returning as The Armorer. Which, she absolutely needs to.

Will streaming platforms start fading out altogether? Well not exactly but some probably will either fade away or merge, similar to the Disney+ Hulu merger.

The fact remains that streaming platforms are going to want to hold onto their money just a little bit tighter. They may, keyword may, not want to produce as many TV shows or at least ones that are costly.

Some may, again keyword may, want to bring people back to theaters and so we might be seeing more content for the big screen when they were originally intended to be TV shows. Now obviously TV shows aren't going away forever.

They will still be made. But that doesn't mean we won't have TV shows options, more films, and continuous changes to streaming platforms.

As a final note from my experience at the convention, it truly was a blast, and I look forward to attending again.

What TV shows are you looking forward to watching this year? Share your answers in the comments below!