“It is our job to make this look effortless.”
On April 21, 2023, I was in Houston, Texas staying with my mother-in-law while moving from Texas to Colorado. That same weekend, Taylor Swift, the global music superstar, was taking “The Eras Tour” to NRG Stadium, playing in front of over 70,000 fans each night for three straight dates. Though the city of Houston spans over 600 square miles, Swift’s arrival electrified every corner of Harris County.
The local news referred to her presence in the city as THE event of the decade for Houstonians.
Having denied my attraction to Swift’s music for years, I was convinced by my husband, Michael, to accompany him to “The Eras Tour,” Swift’s first tour in five years. After the artist lost control of her masters, re-recorded many of her earlier albums for fans to enjoy and released two albums during the height of the COVID pandemic, this tour was a Swiftie’s dream come true. Fans initially clamored for tickets and broke Ticketmaster records, but we were thankfully able to secure tickets at the last minute while we were in town.
I knew I had to witness history for myself.
Now, with “Taylor Swift: The End of an Era,” Disney+ delivers a six-part docuseries that aims to chronicle not just the scale of Swift’s historic tour, but the emotional, cultural and deeply human story running beneath its glittering surface. After the triumphant success of the 2023 concert film that also broke records in theaters, fans long suspected Swift had more to show. Always the content creator, they expected more context from their favorite performer, more candor, more of the backstage reality behind a tour that reshaped the live-music economy and captured global attention.
What they may not have expected was just how vulnerable and resilient the world’s biggest pop star would appear once the cameras went behind the stage. This newest docuseries opens in celebratory fashion, reminding viewers of the tour’s colossal impact: 149 sold-out shows, millions of attendees, along with a cultural ripple effect. Major cities soon relied on the friendship-bracelet-swapping crowds to fill local hotels, and one stop in Seattle ended up vibrating the entire town, registering a 2.3-magnitude earthquake that reached stadium-shaking proportions.
But it doesn’t take long for the first two episodes of this series to shift in tone. The first episode in the series focuses on a harrowing period during the European leg of the tour when a terrorist plot targeting Swift’s Vienna concerts was thwarted around the same time that an attack in Southport, England took the lives of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class. The agony that took over Swift’s mindset is captured in real time, with the artist taking time before a “comeback” London series of shows alongside musician Ed Sheeran to spend time with the families of the victims of that dance class.
These moments are among the episodes’ most affecting. “You’re a pilot flying a plane,” Swift mentions at one point, crafting an analogy that depicts how she presents herself on a literal world stage. The show must go on … and does it ever.
The second episode, titled “Magic in the Era,” expands into a more familiar behind-the-scenes tour documentary format, complete with interviews from Swift’s TikTok-famous backup dancers and singers. Directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce lean into classic tropes: pre-show huddles, backstage rituals, hydraulic entrances and the blacked-out getaway car, as the artist regales her now-fiancé, Travis Kelce, with a play-by-play via a much-needed phone call. The craft of the tour takes center stage as choreographers, dancers, musicians and technical experts reveal the immense precision required to bring Swift’s rotating eras to life onstage.
Highlights of the second episode include dancer Kameron Saunders, whose emotional contemplations on body-shaming and artistic perseverance add dimension beyond the pop spectacle. Any fan of Swift and her onstage entourage will savor the inside look at the creation of the “The Tortured Poets Department” segment, developed in secret as the album debuted in the latter half of the tour. Dancers rehearsed to a click track rather than unreleased music … proof of the airtight vault Swift maintains around her work, even among trusted collaborators.
“The End of an Era” at its core showcases how “The Eras Tour” was a cultural event that fostered community, safety and catharsis for millions of people worldwide. But while this docuseries may not be the in-depth exploration some fans hoped for in the first two episodes, it is evident that Swift and company made it for fans who want to relive all these moments. It’s for the Swifties who can’t stop gobbling up everything the artist puts out there. It’s for newcomers to Swift’s music, like me, who have learned to appreciate Mandy Moore’s outstanding choreography, Swift’s business sense, and ownership (good and bad) of everything the performer conveys through various eras of her life.
“The End of an Era” premiered Friday, Dec. 12, on Disney+ and streams weekly.
