Fishtank Season 4 End

Fishtank production has historically always been plagued by various problems. Anything that can go wrong will/has, and no threat is greater than the audience. I’d like to be clear that I’m not and never have been a Fishtank Doomer.

The Doomer

This role has become a fixture among the fanbase. The first season, it made a little more sense. Still cynical, but Sam and The Wiggers were trying something brand new and they were basically figuring it all out as they went along. So at this stage, when the cameras went down, (especially for an extended period of time) it really felt like there was a real chance it was just over. But throughout Season 1, even production showed they were going to see this thing through. Season 2 is still debated as the best season; Season 3 ended up on an RV to finish out - I think they want to do the show a whole lot.

But now, Doom posters are just a subset of viewers. People that watch the show awaiting it’s demise and FUD’ing as hard as they can the whole time.

Season 4

Season 4 was absolutely shaping up to be the best season yet. The cast was exceptional, being in the Season 1 house felt perfect, and I felt like things were being directed well for the most part.

The first sign of trouble was the second day Bam Margera came to the house. Production had a “State of the Fishtank” address, where they vaguely mentioned being in some legal hot water with the local government and would be having to change locations. A few days after that, the fish were moved to an undisclosed basement, which was quickly doxxed as being the Season 2 house. This was live for a day or so before a now infamous Redditor swatted the house and posted a victory video driving past the house. As happens on the internet, the person was swiftly identified and they began furiously attempting to scrub the internet of their presence.

The Season 2 house ended up being condemned for a lack of fire exits and this is what ultimately led to the season’s early end.

The Sooner

The show went down on a Friday. We got some cryptic messages from Production, and then we started getting the “SOON” tweets. My assumption is that Production was trying whatever they could over the weekend to see the show out.

At least on X, where I interact/keep up with the goings on of the show, there was an overflow of SOON posters. It became a meme, and for every Doomer there were 10 Sooners. This lasted the rest of the weekend.

The following Monday (yesterday) night, cast and crew went live (from, I think, outside the Season 3 house) and it was explained the season had to come to an end and they were out of options. I think they were/are being as upfront about the situation as they could/can be. The local government and populations of the places their properties reside hate their guts. The locations have also all been doxxed for quite a while, so there was also a barrage of issues stemming from that.

Never Dooming

Downtime is part of the experience. Fishtank is as indie as it gets. It’s fresh, especially in it’s execution, which is what’s made it what it is at this point, imperfections and all. The Doom posters might get to have a little victory lap that finally this season they were right. It’s part of the process though. I don’t watch Fishtank because it’s a reliable, highly polished, industry standard piece of slop. It’s some pretty daring guys trying something that hasn’t been done independently (or arguably ever) and it’s going to get messy sometimes, that’s part of the charm.

Or at least it has been up to this point. I think this is probably going to be the official turning point where they rebuild this thing from the ground up (like they mentioned in the final stream) and put themselves somewhere with hopefully a little longer runway before problems start.

I don’t think Fishtank is going anywhere. Season 5 is Soon.