Comment by asciimov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by asciimov | Hacker News Reader

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My partner has been watching a ton of foreign dramas and romcom series the past few years. It started with Midnight Diner and Samurai Gourmet on Netflix, then to K-Dramas, and now we have a few Asian Languages streaming services.

My partner enjoys the fact that these aren't meant to appeal to everybody. They have tons of genres and settings that you can pick and choose. She also enjoys that these shows aren't designed to appeal to the general American audience and tastes and give a taste of other cultures. For example, sex is less overt due to many of these countries having decency laws. (Think Hays Code for older American movies, some things have to be implied instead of shown)

I enjoy the fact that these show get a limited run of 10 - 30 episodes. The stories are focused and have less unresolved threads in the show. Compare this to modern Doctor Who, ST: Discovery, or Lost, where you have story details that don't get resolved for seasons, if ever.

If you have Netflix and want to try some more lighter shows I can recommend: Strong Girl Bong-soon, Love O2O (series or movie), and My Holo Love.

> I enjoy the fact that these show get a limited run of 10 - 30 episodes. The stories are focused and have less unresolved threads in the show. Compare this to modern Doctor Who, ST: Discovery, or Lost, where you have story details that don't get resolved for seasons, if ever.

I agree 100% with that. That's probably one of the reason that I've been watching more Korean series lately. They seem to be very standardised to tell a complete story in exactly 16 episodes. Starting and finishing a series is a known 16 to 20 hours time commitment. In comparison, starting any new US series is a scary proposition. If it's successful, it might get 10 seasons and 2 spin-off. If it's not, it might stop abruptly at anytime with no resolution to the story.

That's a good point.

I see a lot of similar aspects in business - why does everything have to be monopolistic? It reminds me of Facebook, why can't Facebook just be a product with a set goal and end of life cycle? Like everything has to be viewed through the lens of Facebook now, from games, to communication, all interaction is owned by Meta. Make it open-source when it's done and just let it live in peace. Even now, FB can't find employees because it's a scary proposition to work for it.

Why can't we just succeed at one thing then move to another.

> If it's successful, it might get 10 seasons and 2 spin-off. If it's not, it might stop abruptly at anytime with no resolution to the story.

This is something I really appreciated about Dark (German). They wrote the story as three seasons, it was complete for three seasons, they found and released all three seasons. There won’t be a fourth. It was refreshing.

Where in American shows even if they have some idea where they are going (anti-Lost) they almost never completely shut the door.

Another problem western shows have is their increasingly vague release schedules.

The new Star Treks, Doctor Who, The Witcher, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul you get them when you get them. (or maybe AMC will decide to break a season in half and give you half this year and half next year.)

Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Nickelodeon animated TV show, ended after a planned 3 seasons, at the height of its popularity.

And looking at how the spinoffs fared (especially the live-action movie...), it indeed seems like a very good decision.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (a CW musical romantic comedy dealing with mental illness, now on Netflix) did this. The final scene of the fourth and final season was part of the initial pitch for the series.

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