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Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era, like its titular tour, prioritizes maximalism and joy

Disney+'s behind-the-scenes docuseries kicked off Friday.

By Sophie Brookover  |  December 15, 2025 | 4:00pm
Image: Disney+
TV Reviews Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era
Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era, like its titular tour, prioritizes maximalism and joy
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Taylor Swift is never going to be able to shake off her image as the overachieving student who is a pleasure to have in class. And as the first two episodes of Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era (which dropped December 12) remind viewers, that’s because she doesn’t want to. Then again, how could she possibly try to argue that the Eras Tour was a chill little lark? This is a woman who describes herself in “Bejeweled” as one who “did all the extra credit, then got graded on a curve.” People who aren’t obsessed with storytelling don’t conceive, design, and perform a career-spanning tour packed with mini-narratives before concluding triumphantly in a burst of shimmery jackets, confetti, and literal fireworks. For that tour to also become the highest-grossing one to date? Extra credit. 

“Welcome To The Eras Tour” and “Magic In The Eras,” the Disney+ docuseries’ kickoff installments, showcase qualities Swifties find enchanting that also likely prompt many of those outside the star’s fan bubble to roll their eyes. They also mirror defining aspects of the Eras Tour itself, prioritizing maximalism and joy while highlighting Swift’s commitment to excellence even in harrowing situations. 

The dualities of Swift’s life—public and private, personal and global—highlighted in these episodes establish the series as a narrative layer cake, alternating and harmonizing distinct flavor profiles. We have Taylor the larger-than-life artist, performer, and businesswoman nestled right up against Taylor the cute goofball who grabs a few minutes while being shuttled between her hotel and Wembley Stadium to giggle on the phone with Travis Kelce. Swift’s friend and artistic collaborator Florence Welch describes the contrast like so: “The persona is huge, but the person is soft.” And even she is dazzled by the distinction between spending time with “this very cozy person” and emerging onstage to perform “Florida!!!” and thinking, “Oh, my god, it’s fuckin’ Taylor Swift!”

Swift is eager to play the London shows at the heart of these episodes. But she’s also physically and psychologically burdened by a recently-foiled terrorist plot that forced the cancellation of gigss in Vienna and a fatal knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed children’s dance class near Liverpool. In one of the most illuminating sequences, she’s shown fending off symptoms of an anxiety attack about it all, managing to pull out of it with help from a Liz Moore audiobook, some comforting from her mom, and rehearsing with Ed Sheeran for his guest appearance.  

Following the first Wembley show, there’s a peek behind the curtain of just how deep Swift’s worries ran. The moment she’s offstage, she starts yelling “We’re back!” The cameras follow her walk to the SUV that will whisk her to the hotel as she repeats it many times, in relief and triumph. Swift then compares herself to an airline pilot who must maintain a calm confidence to ensure her passengers don’t panic. But being the best requires strict compartmentalizing of awful feelings and physical pain, and those things can’t stay inside forever. 

Swift’s crew, some of whom have been working with her for almost two decades, provide a lot of storytelling structural support, giving quotable talking-head interviews. Most notably, Kam Saunders, a breakout star in Swift’s company of dancers, movingly recounts his experiences as a gifted performer in a body he heard repeatedly was too large for him to be seriously considered in the industry. Touching scenes with him and his mother alternate with moments like Bonus Day, where Swift distributes handwritten notes and checks to dancers, musicians, singers, and crew members.  

For all the time that these episodes of Taylor Swift: The End of An Era spend in London, they steer gracefully away from any explicit references to Swift’s six-year relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn. That silence is even more remarkable given how much time the second installment spends on the integration of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. That 31-song double album, released between legs of the Eras Tour in April 2024, concerns itself largely with the dissolution of Swift’s relationship with Alwyn and the implosion of her brief rebound with 1975 lead singer Matty Healy. For those with keen ears, instrumental needle drops of “Sweet Nothing” and “So Long, London” act as tiny gestures toward Alwyn. But refraining from a tell-all approach makes sense in light of how confessional Swift is in her songwriting. If she’s baring her soul lyrically, who needs her to spell it all out in a documentary, especially one this (mostly) cheerful?   

Sophie Brookover is a contributor to The A.V. Club. Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era runs through December 26 on Disney+.     

 
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