The Bear is out of hibernation. FX premiered the fourth season of its hit fine-cuisine dramedy on Hulu on Wednesday, June 25, which can come as a shock to you.
Forward of the primary season of The Bear, you may not take New York Metropolis mass transit with out being bombarded by adverts for the unknown cooking present starring the man who performed Lip on Shameless. However even commuters couldn’t fathom that the billboard they have been observing would flip into the brand new present of the yr, not to mention the summer season. Forward of the fourth season, anecdotally, it felt like there have been fewer adverts on the road — however there positive have been loads on our TikTok feeds. (A spokesperson for FX informed us the advertising marketing campaign was as strong as ever.)
You’ve most likely additionally learn little season 4 promotion within the press — like in The Hollywood Reporter, for instance — and there are a number of causes for that.
FX had initially arrange a junket for The Bear for Monday, June 9. The digital press convention had a twin goal: 1) to advertise The Bear season 4, and a pair of) to behave as an FYC (For Your Consideration) awards marketing campaign for season three. The junket was canceled — a scheduling situation, we have been informed on the time — and it was not rescheduled.
Although we have been informed that expertise would nonetheless be accessible for particular person interviews, the present’s three leads — Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Ayo Edebiri — have been nonetheless “principally unavailable resulting from scheduling,” FX mentioned. (White has the Bruce Springsteen biopic from twentieth coming later this yr and Moss-Bachrach stars in July’s Unbelievable 4.) Collection common and govt producer (and former culinary advisor) Matty Matheson was additionally unavailable, as have been different present producers, presumably together with sequence creator and showrunner Christopher Storer.
A minimum of all of them had time to take pleasure in a meal at Musso & Frank.
Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebriri celebrated The Bear‘s upcoming fourth season with a dinner for the solid and producers at Musso & Frank Grill on Monday.
David Jon/Getty Pictures for FX Networks
OK, in order that was just a bit spirited ribbing. After all they need to have fun the premiere for themselves — and this group has to go wonderful eating.
For these not within the entertainment-media enterprise, it’s uncommon to not have producers and main castmembers made accessible to the press forward of a brand new season — and exceedingly uncommon throughout awards marketing campaign season. FX received essentially the most Emmys of any community in 2024, so it’s not precisely beginner hour for the model; they identified what they’re doing and so they clearly do it properly.
TV journalists are often granted entry to screeners forward of a brand new season’s launch. A smaller pool than traditional was despatched screeners for The Bear season 4 (and for seasons two and three). FX shared screening hyperlinks with solely a choose group of critics, which included (one at) THR. An FX spokesperson informed THR that greater than 219 critics and reporters got early entry at 108 publications. To be honest, curating a decent record of critics and publications shouldn’t be an entirely unusual follow for the highest-caliber of sequence — HBO does it, too. It’s community PR’s job to regulate entry and keep away from leaks. Screeners are a privilege, not a proper — it’s simply that often extra persons are in on that privilege.
What critics may and couldn’t do — or quite, when they may or couldn’t do one thing — with these screeners is a bit weirder. Critiques of The Bear season 4 have been embargoed for publication till 11:15 p.m. PT Wednesday night time (which is 2:15 a.m. ET on Thursday), or a seemingly random six hours and quarter-hour after premiering (8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Wednesday). It wasn’t random in any respect, THR math discovered. The collective runtime of all 10 season 4 episodes is exactly — you guessed it — six hours and quarter-hour. So in principle and in follow, an excellent fan may watch and end (precisely) the whole thing of The Bear season 4 earlier than the second a TV critic’s assessment may affect their opinion and motion. However that wasn’t the purpose of it, the FX spokesperson mentioned. The embargo was merely an try and not spoil details about the season’s visitor stars or how the season ends.
Evaluation embargoes are a quite common logistical follow in TV and movie, although one’s actual timing can generally converse volumes in regards to the internally perceived high quality of the product. For instance, within the film world, a day-of-release embargo on critiques is usually an indication the studio is aware of its film sucks. In TV, it’s rather more nuanced. For instance, it has change into widespread for a platform — particularly a streaming one — to embargo a assessment till 12:01 a.m. on the day of a TV premiere. You must choose a time, and in an trade that hardly applications to time slots anymore, the literal first minute of the day on which a brand new present or a brand new season is launched is nearly as good as any. The embargo for The Bear season 4, nevertheless, is uncommon.
Nevertheless it’s not the craziest we’ve ever seen. It’s not even the craziest we’ve seen prior to now month or so. For its function movie Ballerina, a derivative from John Wick, the studio Lionsgate (mainly) requested critics to stick to at least one embargo for constructive reactions and a later one for detrimental takes. That did not go over well, nor ought to it have.
And we’re not suggesting that FX believes The Bear season 4 stinks — they don’t — our perception is that the strict guidelines surrounding this one displays the seriousness Storer feels for shielding followers from even the smallest potential spoilers on his present. Once more, we have now receipts.
On the night time of the season 4 premiere, an FX rep emailed media asking {that a} “spoiler alert” be issued “on the prime of all detailed critiques/recaps/protection.” Usually that’s simply good follow if there are semi-significant spoilers. However FX (and Hulu) didn’t even launch the episode titles and descriptions for The Bear season 4 till Thursday. That’s perhaps a bit a lot.
This precedent right here was set properly earlier than the brand new season. For season one, when The Bear was a very unknown summer season present, a mixture that hardly ever ends in a flood of Emmys, the “don’t reveal” spoilers record even included the visitor casting of Oliver Platt as Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) uncle. No offense to Platt, however reporting his function shouldn’t be precisely akin to breaking the subsequent James Bond. We’re not saying that’s a crazy-egregious instance of what goes on inside The Bear’s PR machine, however it’s an instance.
FX is mostly very press-friendly, which is why a lot of this feels significantly uncommon (and makes it straightforward, accurately or incorrectly, to presume that Storer is the making use of a selected degree of stress right here). However FX can be fan-friendly, a job the spokesperson mentioned it should take as significantly because it does its interplay with the media. That may typically be a fragile balancing act, the spokesperson mentioned. And so they don’t all the time get it proper. You realize who else doesn’t all the time get issues proper? The media.
However the media loves FX, and we do really feel that, sometimes, it loves us again. Since we’ve been speaking inside baseball all through this complete story, right here’s a current very inside baseball instance of the love-fest: When FX’s longtime publicity boss, John Solberg, internally introduced his plans to retire, many leisure publications (like THR) lined it as trade information. That’s not exceedingly uncommon, however it’s a tip of the cap to Solberg’s impression on the enterprise, each professionally and personally. Most (if not all) of us genuinely like John, however John earned the protection by his accomplishments. As has Solberg’s boss, John Landgraf.
Landgraf is taken into account one of the crucial respected executives within the enterprise. When he speaks, we cowl. Landgraf is a TV genius who has shepherded FX to the highest of most critics’ lists. (Solberg is the one who fostered these critiques, and the one who oversaw the foundations associated to The Bear’s season 4 publicity marketing campaign.) Landgraf additionally famously coined the phrase “Peak TV” — and in 2024, he declared it over.
So none of it is a shot at FX — not from us, a minimum of. We see the expertise with The Bear’s publicity machine to be a one-off. However it’s nonetheless simply … off.
Christopher Storer on the Emmys.
Getty
The Bear wanted season 4 to be good — whereas the primary and second seasons have been beloved by each critics and on a regular basis viewers, audiences turned their backs a bit on season three (the crucial reception was additionally down, however not as dramatically).
The restrictive embargo has now lifted, the season 4 critiques are in, and so they’re … fairly good, to be sincere. Sure, the brand new season has endured the present’s worst crucial reception to this point, however the sentiment from TV critics remains to be usually constructive.
Properly, not all TV critics. THR’s Angie Han didn’t like it.
In her assessment, Han wrote that “the most recent run has the texture of a present burnt out from the trouble of attempting to outdo itself. Fairly than push ahead or drill deeper, it retreats into acquainted territory because it prepares, perhaps, to wind down for good.
“The spark that lit up earlier volumes has dimmed considerably,” Han wrote.
After all, by now, you’ve had greater than these six hours and quarter-hour to resolve what you assume for your self about The Bear season 4. If, that’s, you knew it was even on.