And yeah, go to weekly releases.
A three year series is fine but treat it like that in the third season before too many people's behaviors change and it starts to become difficult to get their attention to new series because they fear it ending suddenly without resolution.
with this as the case, they’ll likely be wrapped at the end of S03.
There’s not much to be done if they’re cancelled before S03.
I don't mean to sound like some "well akshuallyyy"ing Comic Book Guy figure, but you must realise it's not real life? If it's a Poirot-type mystery where the entire payoff lies in the resolution, then I totally understand, but for a regular TV show I can't see why you would enjoy the episodes any less simply because it might end without resolving all your questions. There's no real suspense - it's not real people, it's just a bunch of people performing in front of a camera. Being distressed about 'what happened to them?' seems, well, puzzling to me.
90's star trek (tng ds9 voy) all 7 seasons, MAS*H 12 seasons, Frasier 11 season, Scrubs 8 season (I skip season 9 and refuse to acknowledge its existance), Red Dwarf 8 season (+ more after the revival decades later), X-Files 11 seasons, How I Met Your Mother 9 seasons, Freinds 10 seasons, Stargate SG1 10 seasons, three seasons is to little to grow a fallowing and not enough for you to rewatch
Luckily the last season only has 22 episodes!
A lot of series jump the shark of they get dragged out for long. Even worse, if it's a slow decline, it kills rewatchability. Some manage, but it goes wrong more often than not. And especially if your concept does not lend itself to a lot of seasons (like Chernobyl, for example), you should stop while it's still good.
And from a more recent sample, The Expanse would not have been allowed to get to the end of the story arc.
All three have a few things in common. A strong cast of good-but-not-a-star actors.[ß] Writers who knew what they were doing. A story that they wanted to tell, and knew how long it would take. And above all: the integrity to end the series once the story was told. No stretching into infinity with useless rehashing or replaying of old hits. No resets. No desperate attempts to magically reinvent itself.
You pointed this out yourself: Shows that get dragged out inevitably suck.
ß: Idris Elba became a star later.
(EDIT: grammar)
It’s not that having 10 seasons is bad. But many shows tell the story they wanted to tell in much less time. At which point you should just stop.
Some formats are interesting though like American Horror Story. It’s more like an anthology. Different story each season. Some actors might return with different roles.
Dr Who is also interesting since the mechanism for “reboots” is built in to the character.
Or go the Disney route and expand the individual character stories like they are doing with Marvel and Star Wars.
That said, for shows that have a continuous, overreaching storyline I'm highly suspect of the writers having no idea how the thing is gonna end. Sure, in some lucky cases it works out super well, but in other cases it gets us unsatisfying stuff that undermines the show like with Lost or Battlestar Galactica. Come up with the story arch and tell the story. Please don't keep stretching the thing out endlessly and end it when it's bad or the crew wants to move on. That's fine with shows that have disconnected episodes, but for modern shows or can ruin the whole thing and leaves me feel like I wasted a ton of time.
I also agree with OP that encouraging binge watching is not good. Netflix pumped out more content than any cable TV package I've ever had in the past, but by allowing binge-watching people binge and then get bored and say Netflix has no content.
If they spread out these shows it would be healthier for the viewers and would create a perception of more content.
People don't say that Netflix has "no content" because they binge watch. People say that because Netflix does genuinely have dramatically less content than it did 8-10 years ago, because of the proliferation of competing streaming services.
If Netflix still had access to all the content it has hosted over the years, people wouldn't be making those complaints.
Maybe that sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. If you're browsing through random movies on IMDB and come across something interesting, the chance that Netflix will have it is vanishingly small.
This is because consumers have been conditioned since last century to assume this is how things should be. Netflix is trying to create a new [better] experience, and this is how they are going about it. Pilots of shows suck! Almost always the second episode the characters are more realistic, more developed. Sure, it hurts when the season gets pulled, but it was a much better experience during the run. Why say it's a problem? It's just "different" from what you personally expect.
> This is because consumers have been conditioned since last century to assume this is how things should be.
Or people aren't conditioned to care about what the idiotbox tells them at all. They are simply upset that something they like is being summarily made unavailable, like any other product.
I would bet that some people would pay for always getting the newest content, if only for being able to talk to their friends about the newest episode each week.
By contrast, Netflix uses the viewership ratings from the first season to determine whether to renew for a second season.
And seasons are so short that even the bad seasons weren't a lot of TV.
The first four seasons are among the best TV ever. The final two among the worst.
tell the story you want to tell, with a satisfying ending. book and run the show for all of it.
no open ended shows that will run until it lives.lo h enough to suck. no shows canceled before their story is complete
Maybe personal bias, but it seems to hold up pretty well in my viewing history. Seinfeld definitely felt stretched at 9. Star Trek TNG's seventh season definitely felt like about time to wrap it up. Simpsons went kind of wonky around season 8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer seemed good for a 7 season run.
Not some immutable law, but really good shows ending after 5 seasons seems a bit disappointing as well, like Babylon 5. Writers run out of ideas and the original concept seems explored pretty thoroughly after going through 7 seasons.
Three is way too short. Seven seems like the sweet spot. Maybe everyone just gets bored and they don't do stuff as well after seven seasons, but shows really start to change after season 7.
I think the full release of everything prevents it from building up cultural relevance but I'd like to see something like 2 or 3 episode every two or three weeks rather then 1 at a time.
Great shows are often 6-12 episodes for 5+years.
Most streaming shows have far shorter seasons than classic TV sitcoms/dramas/soaps.
I won't even play wordle, because it wants me to come back for my daily dose of engagement.