Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era review: tears over terrorist plot

The Eras Tour was such a cultural juggernaut that it would have felt remiss if Taylor Swift hadn’t documented it for posterity. It was bigger and longer than other stadium pop shows – Swift sold $2billion worth of tickets and performed for a Springsteenian three-and-a-half hours a night – so The End Of An Era is supersized too. Instead of the usual feature-length documentary, it’s an expansive six-part series that promises a “never-before-seen insight into what it took to create a phenomenon”.

Does this mean it’s more revealing than other tour docs? Judging on the first two episodes that premiered today (December 12), probably not. Nothing here feels as gloriously off-the-cuff as the iconic moment from Madonna‘s 1991 fly-on-the-wall film Truth Or Dare where she pretends to gag after Kevin Costner calls her show “neat”. Perhaps the four remaining episodes – two more arrive on December 19, followed by the final two on December 26 – will seem slightly less controlled.

Still, the first episode in particular contains some illuminating and moving moments. Swift tells us she “dodged a massacre situation” when authorities foiled a terrorist plot targeting her dates in Vienna in August 2024, which she then cancelled in the interests of safety. Barely a week earlier, three children were killed in a mass stabbing at a Swift-themed dance party in Southport. Swift breaks down when she tries to recount what happened, then appears emotionally spent after meeting the victims’ families backstage at Wembley. The gathering takes place off-camera for obvious reasons, but we’re told Swift met Southport families ahead of all five shows in this run. Her fortitude and support is incredibly affecting.

Taylor Swift during her historic Eras Tour run. CREDIT: 2024 TAS Rights Management

Generally, the tone is more upbeat as directors Don Argott and Sheena Joyce, who previously made a feature-length film about Swift’s fiancé Travis Kelce, fall prey to cliché. We see Swift gathering her dancers for a pre-show “huddle”, crouching in a hydraulic lift ahead of an entrance, and stepping off stage and straight into a blacked-out car. The second episode’s peg is a surprise cameo by Florence Welch at one of Swift’s Wembley shows, but most of the runtime is devoted to the tour’s staging and choreography. Swift takes a backseat as we hear from dancers like Kameron Saunders, who views this gig as vindication after years of being body-shamed by industry gatekeepers. It’s a nice reminder that it took a small town of talent to make The Eras Tour possible.

At the end of the episode, Swift delivers an energetic duet with Welch, whom she hails as a “national treasure”. It’s a well-intentioned compliment, but kind of makes Welch sound like a millennial Shirley Bassey. Moments of goofiness like this help to humanise Swift, an unflappable and detail-oriented performer who says she always feels like “a pilot flying a plane”.

There’s a great documentary to be made about The Eras Tour, but it’s probably an unofficial one exploring the unique sense of community it fostered among the singer’s fanbase. “It’s like Woodstock without the drugs,” one commentator notes here, entirely without shade. For now, though, The End Of An Era is solid content for Swifties wanting to relive the tour’s huge collective dopamine hit.

‘Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era’ is streaming on Disney+

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