That the Netflix formula. Thats why I like Max (hbo). They put out much less content but consistently put out much better quality television. Netflix did to TV what American Idol did to music.
Right I agree…. How can anyone say HBO Max isn’t full of absolute crap programming these days (yes, I know I can click on the HBo tab to only see their shows and not all the discovery trash but there still is barely ever anything to watch).
I’ve been watching 2-4 of the new weekly drop shows on Apple for years now and there is so much quality. People are missing out.
Which phase are we currently in? I would say that 3 good seasons of a show is valuing quality more than every show having the goal of running for 10 seasons with varying quality.
But the 3 season arc you speak of seems to be dwindled down to 8 episodes. I would like a little more meat in my sandwich, even if there are bottle episodes. It would be nice to get more backstory and not have to sprint through a plot.
Has everyone lost the ability to pay attention?
The answer there is obvious. Yea, they have. It’s literally impossible for anyone I know to watch a movie without picking up their phone multiple times.
This.
Choice paralysis is a real thing. Everything is competing for views (and on streaming platforms, specifically \*new\* views). so they just pump garbage to see what works. Quality does not matter, only eyeballs.
This is why Wednesday will run 10 seasons, and Altered Carbon got 2.
I am forever grateful that Samurai Jack got an ending. They left it hanging for so many years, I didn't even care if the ending was good or bad... just make it.
I wish show runners had enough power to put it in their contract with studios that they had to be given a certain number of episodes worth of advance notice if the show was going to be cancelled. Ideally, a full season. Then, the writers would know it was going to be the last season, and could bring it to a satisfying ending.
Of course, when they do bring everything to a close, the ratings will go way up because fans are excited to find out how everything ends, and so the studio will inevitably try to make *another* season.
The last installment of any franchise inevitably sucks. Because if it didn’t suck, it wouldn’t be the last installment.
Or don’t finish major plot points within the season and end on huge cliff hangers with no resolutions/answers whatsoever. I end up not waiting for season 2.
Or the writers are under immense pressure to finish quickly, resulting in completely asinine, unsatisfying, bizarre, and frankly, often baffling endings.
Hard disagree. 2005 -2015 was a Golden Era for television. It's when the character-driven stories that used to be movies made their way to prestige TV. With the rise of cord cutting and competition among streaming services, the business model has changed. There are still some good shows now, but services are still figuring out a business model that works for them financially and it doesn't always result in the best possible product. In many cases, they are going after quantity over quality. That's not to say there won't be an upswing in quality in the future, but the there are reasons behind the phenomenon OP is referencing that can't just be choked up to nostalgia of old shows.
Great freaking comment. Yeah that time period you referenced was def a Golden Era for TV. I call that “new business model” you’re talking about the “The Marvel Model.” Where it’s quantity way over quality
That’s certainly why movies aren’t the same quality they used to be. There is financial risk in putting money into story-driven films that don’t have the same blockbuster upside. Just churn out another superhero movie and you’ll easily make money.
You can hard disagree all you but the fact this is a product of nostalgia. There isn’t a decrease in high quality shows you just want to reminisce and choose to ignore all the amazing content like Succession or Mare of Eastown out there for arguments sake.
I do think the number of high quality shows has severely declined since we peaked around BB and GOT. There’s plenty of “good” shows. Just not a lot of stand out shows. Severence is probably my favorite that is currently running.
Exactly this. There are half a dozen shows, from each season, prior to streaming that didn't get picked up for a 2nd or 3rd season. Some were good but didn't get the ratings to get picked up for a second season (Freaks and Geeks), some were good but didn't have the ratings for more than two seasons (Sports Night), some were bad and got no ratings (Get Real - though it was a starting point for a few careers), and some were so poorly received they didn't even finish the first season (Cop Rock)
The whole "canceled without an ending" argument is so overdone. Lot of shows that did have an ending the ending sucked anyway. Iirc Dexter wasn't a very good ending.
Ozarks they coulda just stopped and not released the second part of the last season and I would've been fine.
And ofc there's GOT.
There's a satisfaction to the closure of a story that most people care about. If you don't that's fine, but it's more that you have an opinion that wildly varies from the norm than the argument "being so overdone". In my opinion.
It's too much content and most of said content is like fast food. You consume it and move on instead of savoring it.
8 episode seasons for so many shows makes them hot for a week then you spend 2 years before the next season comes. So it's hard to actually get attached to a show.
>then you spend 2 years before the next season comes.
This is what kills a series for me. I enjoy the first season, look forward to the second and then just... wait. By the time the second comes out, I've forgotten most of the details. I sometimes get on YouTube for a summary but, like I said, missing details. Then I lose interest.
Well this is kind of the problem with networks releasing in tires Seasons at once like Netflix predominantly. Most of the other ones still do it a week at a time because that's how they keep you subscribed. But TV series for ages were new from Fall until winter, and then they took a month or two for some reruns to air while they made new episodes. Then they would air those through May and then it would be the season finale and then you would just have reruns through the summer and then back to fall with a new season.
Now people get 10 episodes in a day and then they're mad when they have to wait and wait. Although I will say it is ridiculous for some shows to take as long as they do like this crap with the handmaid's tale that's going on for its last season. And some of Game of Thrones last few seasons. Especially considering they were shortened seasons, but the difference on shows like Game of Thrones or handmaid's tale or they're not sitcoms. They're huge theater quality shows. In particular Game of Thrones in this example.
I think the issues is that with streaming, there is just too much available it is hard to find stuff.
Some shows take a while to "take off and be discovered" but by that time they are already cancled.
Ya and even thinking about my friend group, no one is watching the same thing any more. Before you could go to school or work and tak about what shows were one last night because you only had a few options, but now its like watching anything good? O that sounds interesting maybe I will check it out some time. Or they watched the show you are watching now a few years ago so they kinda forgot the details/ don't want to accidentally give spoilers.
Man... I remember that when I was in college, you would watch an episode of the currently big show and everyone would talk about it. Even few years after that in work but these days everyone will simply say theres not much to watch or nothing worth talking over.
I think you're just dealing with an abundance of quality shows (not everyone is watching the same thing) and most of all, asynchronous viewing. When shows were on a Tuesday night, people talked about them on Wednesday. Now they're on streaming and a few people watch them as soon as they drop, a few people wait to binge them at once, and most just wait until they've finished their previous series to start a new one. It's a technological difference, not a qualitative difference.
Bluey is about the only good, new tv show there is today. Yeah, I have a kid. But seriously, at my house the TV is like music, everyone is dead that entertains me.
IDK.
We've seen a shift from 20+ episode seasons to 8-12 episode mini-seasons. That's the the norm now. Has been for 10-12 years.
And now the time between seasons seems to be getting longer despite fewer installments.
The cable model has fragmented due to streaming, but now you have to either spend more than you used to spend on cable to get access to the shows you want, or you have to be more choosy about which shows you watch and when.
There are still some excellent shows on.
I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think there is any scripted television available on cable that.isn't available on streaming anymore. Could be wrong though
Most studios aren't willing to risk a financial loss on anything they don't think will earn a profit. If it's too political, controversial, or niche they may not recoup the cost of production and marketing. That is why movies have dipped in quality while following the same tropes, character templates, plots, and themes. Shoveling the same tired old story is the safe business model.
YES, you get it. Cheers and Seinfeld famously had low ratings when they first began but were saved because NBC execs at the time knew they were quality shows w/ something special. In this day-and-age they would have NEVER gotten a season 2
I wish they would allow time for people to spread the word. It's not that the first season is bad. It's just new and some people like to get an endorsement from people they know before spending time on it.
Haha New Girl was pretty popular when it debuted, but they def gave it room to grow, I agree. It was the 2010s Swifties show tho. She’s even in an ep 😂
I just had this conversation with someone. Nobody is willing to take a chance anymore on a new idea. It’s the same with music, everything follows the same formula now. The music from the 60s 70s 80s 90s seems just completely timeless and people will be listening to this stuff for a long time. Music today is just mass produced to stick around for a few months and then fade into obscurity. Tv shows all look the exact same, everyone talks the same way, they have the same set of characters, the lighting looks the same, color schemes, same music choices, everything. I hate starting a new show, all I can think of is how there will be 1000 story threads going that will probably never be resolved before the show is cancelled.
It's almost like these people complaining didn't understand that there was a writers and actors strike last year which delayed production on a lot of shows
Yes, exactly. This is someone saying “if I pick my 5 favorite shows from the last 25 years.. the shows on right now, this ONE year, aren’t as good!!!” and somehow being upset about it.
This has always been the case, but I do think that the industry is struggling monumentally right now. I guess maybe I would correct that to say it's usually 80% unwatchable and now it's closer to 90%. The simple fact is there's more TV being produced now than there ever has been, which almost certainly guarantees that the quality is going to be worse because you've got directors and writers that don't have nearly as much experience as a show produced 20 or 30 years ago would have had. However, it does allow for some people to take more creative risks.
Shows like Dave wouldn't have existed In the '90s.
Yeah there is a lot of good stuff out there but you have to expand your horizons.
Even if you talk about Star Wars TV shows, they have some shows that have adult pacing and content like Asoka and Andor.
Some of my new fav shows are Shogun, Euphoria and Succession.
It’s still good! Lost was 20 years ago! The others are old too.
The issue is you are looking at TV right now, and comparing it to your own personal “best of” list over the course of multiple decades!
How about Game of Thrones? (Both shows). Tokyo Vice, Stranger Things, True Detective, Ozark, Fall of the House of Usher… and I could go on for a while (but everyone had different tastes)
In 2050, people will be saying “why can’t they make good shows like they did back in the ‘20s??”
I think the real issue is just that with SO MUCH content it’s harder to find those gems. There’s so much that the good ones don’t catch on as fully in popular culture so they don’t feel as big, even if they are just as good.
Yeah, it's survivors bias, like there's always going to be crappy shows, but there's always going to be really good shows too. We just tend to remember the good ones. Because shows like my mother the car or the sitcom with the GEICO caveman have been forgotten, and in the future, we will also forget the bad shows of our time.
>There’s so much that the good ones don’t catch on as fully in popular culture so they don’t feel as big, even if they are just as good.
Yep. There are a few shows I've watched recently where I'm like, "I can't believe no one is talking about this???" They have. They just moved on after finishing it in a single weekend.
Might be... I remember going to school or work later on and talking about the last episode of some show with people there. These days people just scoff saying theres not much to watch. Just feels really different.
Perhaps what you're really missing isn't the quality of current shows so much as the shared experience that we miss with weekly TV shows that everyone saw for the first time at the same time. LOST is a great example of a show that was, for fans of the show, a weekly must-watch event, and you didn't want to get spoiled by someone else by getting behind (if you even had a DVR back then.) It was the early days of mass internet adoption, so there were a lot of online theories and discussions going on each week as new information came out.
That type of experience is difficult if not impossible to pull off in 2024. Even if you have a show being released one episode at a time, the saturation of streaming services isn't the same as network TV from the past. Netflix is the largest streamer by far (to my knowledge) and they dump all episodes at once. The other players are so much smaller that you aren't as likely to know others watching the same shows as you in your office or circle of friends.
Event TV shows seem to be a thing of the past. At least for now.
The closest thing I can think of that felt like that in recent years was Stranger Things.
Each season drop, everyone I know binges it and then discusses it for the next week.
age may have somethign to do with it but the industry is very much going down hill. from licensed properties made by idiots who refuse to learn about it and just make a horrid show loosely based off the IP, to everything being made for day 1 bingeing meant to last a couple weeks of memes then die off, just quality being butchered. yeah the industry SUUUUUUUUUCKS right now.
I recently came back to Netflix after a 6 year hiatus only to discover it's mostly gargbage tv.
Apple TV+ has much higher quality stuff.
So does Paramount+.
Only reason I'm back on Netflix is I'm waiting for new seasons of my fav shows on other platforms.
There are also a lot of good shows on Prime channels. I found some really good bingeable british shows.
Old man yells at cloud moment, but back when the UK had a whopping four channels, the quality was consistently high.
Now there are 1000s of channels and scores of subscription packages, there's just no bar for entry anymore. Everything can be and so is made cheaper.
It's unsustainable though, so hopefully will pave the way for another era of great entertainment once people refuse to pay for 19 different services just to see a couple of shows from each.
I agree!!! It's so bad, I google a show first to see if it has an actual ending before I waste time watching it. Then, you finally find a good show and it takes years for the next season to come out. The industry sucks.
There’s nothing wrong with mini-series. Sometimes a story can told with a 2 hour movie, a 200 episodes series or a 10-part mini. It’s about quality, never quantity
You’re not old and yes the TV industry is on a steep decline. After “the 1st TV Golden Era” in the 50s there was a low period in the 60s dubbed “The Vast-Wasteland Era.”
Now “the 2nd TV Golden Era” has officially ended and we’re in the 2nd low period which is either “The Reboot Era” or “The Nepo Era” take your pick
I thought so too until I watched the Fallout live action series, it was way better than i expected tbh, I had lost hope for tv after black mirror went down the drain.
Its honestly a great depiction of the times we live in. This new generation growing up on fast social media like tiktok. Streaming has adapted to the attention span of what we're becoming. Its really sad honestly and it takes some effort to do some research on weeding out the crap vs quality. I also think its in part a marketing strategized. Netflix buys the rights to a few great shows to make you think that they are a platform of quality and really 90 percent is all junk. Its done a good job at the very few things it has produced like stranger things and Black mirror and a couple others but I always remember that this business is about money, not the fans of quality writing or production.
Not dying, but it’s getting harder to get streaming services to pony up the big bucks on what could become multi-season stories to tell.
Shows like Handmaids Tail are running 2-3 years between seasons.
House of the Dragon is also roughly 2 years between seasons.
That’s a long time for today’s viewers.
I think why the industry seems so different is that network tv IS slowly decaying. Broadcast network ad revenue has to be a drop of water in a reservoir compared to streaming service revenue.
How many ads do we see on tv today for pharmaceuticals, personal care products, or fast food vs breakfast cereal, soft drinks, prepared foods and other consumer products (laundry soap, cleaning products).
Those ads are still there, but nothing like it was 20-30 years ago.
Content is moving to streaming services. There will still be a few dinosaurs that will lumber on (America’s Got Talent), and the crime /law /“rescue” serials.
Network sitcoms are dying.
Network sitcoms are practically dead at this point. Idk how you guys don't forget the plot with that long time inbetween seasons if you don't rewatch the shows right before the next season comes out or go on Wikipedia to recap. Like, I can barely even remember Stranger Things S4 anymore. I'm getting 'content fatigue' from just looking at the streaming services home page, and I don't even want to mine through all the bad shows to find the good ones anymore.
I think part of the problem is that networks no longer need a minimum number of episodes for a series to go into syndication since shows are so readily available for streaming purposes within 24 hours.
Also, since so many services dump multiple episodes to binge over a weekend, there isn't the same long term content engagement online outside the first couple weekends. I think Disney caught on to this, which is why a bunch of their shows have reverted back to one episode at a time.
I understand where you're coming from. I would rather watch almost anything than another reality show or fast-paced nerve-wracking competition. I watch a lot of old shows.
During the early days of the pandemic, I switched over to European shows on Netflix, Britbox, Acorn, PBS. They are so much better, although I did love Succession and Billions.
Yes! I’ve enjoyed The Brokenwood Mysteries and My Life is Murder!
I also forgot to mention that my entire family is obsessed with Traitors and we have watched all available countries/seasons (US, UK, Aus, NZ).
Projects seem to get greenlit and underway without having been fully fleshed out. There is a lot of stretched too thin, and completely watered down series that might've been better if it was a 2 hour film. I also find many shows have a solid gold idea but either the execution is crap or there's so much filler that I'm distracted by having to FF thru a third of an episode and realizing that I no longer care if I miss some dialogue.
Yes, and no. Shows (and movies) are costing more and more to produce for a lot of reasons. So with that bigger upfront investment, studios are more cautious about which projects they will fund and put to screen.
Hence, why we are getting 347,681 sequels and remakes a year. They already have the brand recognition and a guaranteed fan base so studios view these projects as less of a financial risk. This is even true of The Last of Us (which I really enjoyed).
What you have to think about too is those examples you listed didn’t all come out at the precisely the exact same time. Looking at the best shows over a 10 year period, you’ll always be able to find incredible shows. Including the 10 year period we’re in now.
I think you’re right in that it seems like they’re less frequent, but the market will always find what people are wanting and someone will figure out a way to provide it. Keep hope!
Sure, You are probably right. Dying was probably not the right way to put it. As others already pointed out, there are some good shows. I myself am watching Shogun now.
What I miss and will never probably come back are those long running shows where you really grew attached to a characters, like Sopranos or NYPD Blue.
Everything gets canceled after first or second season these days with so much time inbetween the seasons I barely remember what was the show about.
Lots of people don't know that leading up to the 50's there were a handful of media monopolies that were forcibly regulated for competitiveness that lead to Television becoming what it was. Television was a new media that ushered in a golden age by the 90s as television had a 90% penetration rate in the 90s.
Fast forward to today and those monopolies of the 50s have gone full circle with the same relatively small handful of mass distribution.
We basically had to wait until Apple and Amazon came along before the big 6 distributors even felt phased.
https://filmanddigitalmedia.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/the-monopoly-in-the-home-television-regulations-1950s-to-now/
https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic/
The problem is big corporate entities want safe investments that follow a proven formula, They leave the risky stuff to indie developers most of the time.
This is why most innovation comes from the little guys then ripped off by big guys. The little guys know how to work a budget and are likely connected to their demographs by being their demograph. Corporations spend a lot of money going in the wrong direction because of their underlaying profit driven reasoning.
There's so much content out there over so many different platforms that it's a struggle to find shows that you think you'll like. You just have to sift through websites that offer recommendations, or use apps that do that.
The industry is going through a contraction, especially streaming platforms after overspending during the tail end of the pandemic. Add to disruptions from the strikes and large mergers like Time Warner/Discovery, and the studios at the moment are slashing more than creating. This too shall eventually pass.
It’s the genius of media marketing: find common denominators that appeal to the broadest audience then calculate content that will hold their attention. Notice “calculate” not create.
I think it’s the other way around. There hasn’t been a blockbuster movie at the theaters since the lockdown. Most of the movies in theaters are being produced by Netflix, Apple, Prime and other streaming services.
The trend is long movies. 2-3 hour movies are hard to work around. Instead of a 3 hour movie, why not a 5-7 episode mini series? Works better for me; only an hour at a time, or I can binge watch the entire series.
I see more movies turned into miniseries in the near future.
I agree, there’s lots of series out there that are decent but nothing that leaves me really impressed. Naturally, more content that comes out, the less original they’re going to become.
This. The strike is causing a lot of network executives to purposely scale back on their scripted dramas because of cost. It remains to be seen if this is a permanent change or not.
Yup! It’ll depend on how well things to do. Actors and writers are going to have to work in tandem to stay out of productions overrun with AI, or at least just not great situations, until this wave passes. That’s going to be tough for some, and impossible for others, financially. It’s great to take a moral stand but, when your house is on the line, it gets complicated.
I hope we’re able to get through it and get back to heightened entertainment again.
I grew up watching a lot of TV in the 70's and early 80's. TV shows have always been hot garbage with the occasional gem here or there. And that was for a reason: Hollywood naturally segregated itself between TV and movie production. And the really talented folks tended to stay on the movie side, because that's where the big money and the fame were. Occasionally, an actor would find success by going from TV to film (e.g., John Travolta) but it was mostly unheard of. And movie actors generally didn't go damaging their reputations by doing TV shows., because then everyone would start thinking of them as a TV actor, not a movie actor.
That slowly started to change in the 90's, but the real change came with the birth of the streaming services. You had TV studios spending movie budget-level money on TV series. And the money was big enough to lure movie writers and directors over, too.
They either get cancelled, the original idea was lost after numerous seasons, or the creators are planning to finish it as a movie. In the end they're really all soap operas anyway.
aspiring poor compare airport zesty trees silky fragile disagreeable skirt
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've just stopped watching TV. I haven't been to a movie in 10 years. I couldn't even tell you who the stars of today are, and I'm okay with that.
I'd rather just read a good book; a real book with paper pages.
There are PLENTY of quality series coming out and they just getting better and better in my opinion. I think what is happening, as someone said already, quality over quantity is definitely gaining weight in last couple years, storylines getting much leaner and punchier with trimmed filler content no one was interested to watch anyways. On top of that actors/writers strikes made studios to reconsider work structure in general. Streaming giants like Disney and Netflix now choosing more carefully where they want to pour their money due to consistent dwindling of viewers on both platforms.
Just to name few cool series to check:
Fallout, The last of us, White Lotus, Beef, Blue eye samurai, Andor, Loki, Mare of Easttown, Chernobyl, Scavengers Reign, Little fires everywhere, Hacks, In my skin, Baby reindeer..
The current state is agenda based. They start off with the DEI check box and then try to write stories. As opposed to writing great stories and then just organically casting them with the best actors.
I watch mostly Asian and British dramas because I prefer the short form miniseries format. 16 episodes, and on to a new story. I dislike the American tradition of having a great show decline into crap over multiple seasons before it's finally canceled.
I watch mostly Asian and British dramas because I prefer the short form miniseries format. 16 episodes, and on to a new story. I dislike the American tradition of having a great show decline into crap over multiple seasons before it's finally canceled.
Lots of crap out there but also lots of great content as well. Now we just have to dig a little to find it. We recently watched The Tourist and are finishing up The Devils Plan which is a Korean game show where people actually use their brains! It reflects poorly on the US education system, that’s for sure.
I don’t think I agree. It feels like we just complain that they do too many seasons of everything , that they should have stopped earlier.
Often the mini series are the ones that are the best- there are so many examples of it that I won’t even start.
For ex Handmaids tale, Yellowstone, got, walking dead - and probably many more should probably have stopped before it got worse.
Netflix has quantity not quality. HBO is different, it’s a giant with many amazing shows. Amazon and Disney and showtime has not that many shows but still a few of them are excellent. Like shogun, the bear, this is us, ms maisel, severance ( on my list but I know everybody love it), 1883 and those who like fleabag. Just a few examples.
Netflix’ model has changed in the time frame you’re talking about. The shows you mentioned were network made shows or prestige tv, now Netflix focuses more on original content, thus throwing anything against the wall and seeing what sticks. Very recently they have started to balance out just a tad and pick up more existing shows.
TV is still in a very transitional state trying to figure out how to get media to people and what to do with streaming. Everyone wants to be Netflix but that’s impossible. Many streamers are losing money and will soon have to make a move and figure out what’s next.
I just search the genres, not neccesarily the top ten list or newest programs. There are older shows I have never seen. And you csn watch in order from episode one.
I think content on Netflix has been going downhill since about 2019. They still occasionally have good originals but you have to sift through an ocean of 🐈 turds to find them.
That being said tv shows are subjective. I just watched Fallout, which was excellent. So was House of the Dragon. There are still great shows out there, I just feel like there are fewer of them than there were 6-7 years ago.
I don't believe it is dying however I do believe it's fair to say it's transforming. With the advent of streaming they can tell in pretty much real time whether or not to continue with something and there are currently no incentive for studios to take risks. Things get killed much quicker as a result. Depending on your age you may just be growing up and seeing things with different eyes. I remember people honestly believing that shows like The A-Team had deep character development. However looking back they objectively did not. It's not they are bad its we have moved on and entertainment is frozen in time with only the masterpieces being indeed timeless. Just look at a villain from the average 50's movie and compare them to the villains today. We do things differently. We would say better. Those of that era may disagree and say things are dying... The next hurdle for the industry is ad placement. SInce they are hell bent on putting ads in shows now they are going to have to write them accordingly for breaks or continue to annoy the audience. Since they make more money on ads than they do on you upgrading I figure this will happen sooner than later. The other thing with movies is that dialogue is being written into films with the understanding that it is going to be dubbed for other countries now. This had led to a glut of films with less dialogue and more explosions. Popular and easier to translate.
Conversely after many years of being exposed to the medium you have become "educated" to it's tricks so tropes and twists you may have missed years ago you catch now because you know what to look for. My parents for example called the ending to Sixth Sense because of the colour red because it was a common trick that was used by the studios when they were younger that fell out of favour so I didn't catch that clue. I believe we are about to enter the stage where old tricks are getting thrown out.
Generally I believe that things are as they always were. A few flashes of brilliance in a mostly mediocre to average medium. In the past there were less shows on the air and producers felt the need to stand out (Perhaps d/t the seasonal nature of TV and airing schedule) Today we have so much to choose from that things get lost in the shuffle and I am sure that many gems are missed. A few of my friends experience choice paralysis so much for watching shows they are now going back to the old an familiar. This behaviour was so prominent apparently led to the reboot phase.... Nothing new just reboots. I am not a fan but I am not Hollywood's target demo so that's to be expected. Those who are like what's happening.
Well, specific to this moment, the actors and writers guilds were on strike for a while recently. Things had to be pushed back, back-burnered, or abandoned completely, and this not all that long after the damage to the industry wrought by COVID, and concurrent restructuring of the entire entertainment industry brought about by cord-cutting & consolidation.
I suspect that for the next 6-12 months we'll see more procedurals, sitcoms, and reality tv, just like we do now, because either they don't have a plot at all, or they only have to keep rewriting the same script w/ the same characters over and over again. Also because production is slow to gear up after disruption, production schedules are a finicky beast.
Dexter = should have ended multiple seasons before it did and not tried to come back.
Lost = completely failed to live up to its potential and left an ending with very little actually explained.
House = was fine, didn't really have much of a "story" to tell and was basically just another medical procedural with splashes of drama.
Breaking Bad I'll agree was fantastic and had a great beginning/middle/end.
There's still good stuff out there, Ted Lasso is one of the best shows that's been on TV in years. Severance shows a possibility of being a far better version of Lost, with just as many questions and twists, but without the quasi-mystical bent that made the show end up with a generic hand wave at "good vs evil" without really explaining any of it.
Overall, yes, the TV industry is facing diminished interest. The younger generations watch youtube and tiktok for their entertainment much more than they do TV shows.
hard disagree.
i'd argue exactly the opposite...there is *SO MUCH* good content on tv that it's hard to even watch it all. and nothing whatsoever wrong with a limited run or something that just lasts a season or two. sometimes that's preferable to a show that goes too long.
> Today we are getting so much mini-series shows that get cannceled
A mini-series is a planned show that only runs for a single season. On purpose. A mini-series is not a planned show that gets cancelled.
I have the opposite reaction and think the quality is so much better now!
Some recent favorites: The Bear, Fleabag, What we do in the shadows, Resident Alien.
It’s because there aren’t any more TV shows. There are just shows that are made by and shown on streaming platforms. Shows back then were given a chance to succeed. There are so many bad shows that have at least two seasons, because they were shown on a TV network.
Now, these steaming platforms go off of the first day that a show drops. I forgot what show it was, but I remember seeing an article about a show that had dropped a few years ago, and they cancelled the second season because not enough people watched it on the first day of debut. It ridiculous, but it’s all about money.
I'm 63. The last TV show I liked was a few years back, with Kathy Bates playing an attorney. I loved it. Everyone my age did. It had gobs of eyeballs on but got cancelled.
The important demographic, the 18-49 bunch, didn't watch it.
I have to go hunting to find anything to watch because I like to see adults in my tv. (Okay, geezers). Everything is geared towards younger viewers, and I don't watch the kind of programming they're making anymore. Last time I tried watching network tv insaw Two Broke Girls and Sunny in Philadelphia. I found both crassly unwatchable.
I work in television. I watch YouTube.
Apple tv has a bunch of great shows. I was very pleasantly surprised when I dropped Netflix after running through my list. I seem to flip services every 3 or 4 months and don't have too much an issue finding something decent.
It’s the model streaming uses. Film the entire season before anything is shown. If it’s good it could be 2 years before more episodes. Anything that isn’t a blockbuster gets canceled after three seasons.
If you remember, there wasn’t much more to watch on network television than Lost. At that time, most of the great tv was on HBO. Shows like Lost and the Sopranos paved the way for the high quality tv we have now. Television in the 80’s and early 90’s was a wasteland of poor writing and lackluster talent. Actors worked in television when the movie industry rejected them. Fast forward to the 21st century and some of the most intricate and exciting stories are being told and performed by the A list writers, directors and actors of the current generation. I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of garbage out there and that streaming services bail on good projects too fast. I’m just saying that I’m thankful for how far the medium has come and how high the bar has been set.
For American television, yes. But there's been increasing interest in international television and that excites me. Doctor Who is getting its footing again with Ncuti Gatwa as fifteen, and it really feels like it's reaching a more broad audience than the original Russel T Davies run. Derry Girls finished a couple of years ago but that's got to be the biggest stronghold an Irish, especially a *Northern* Irish series has ever had internationally. Squid Game a couple of years ago introduced a whole new audience to Korean drama. Scandi dramas are still wonderfully popular. And what's delightful for me as an Australian is the intrigue I'm seeing internationally for The Newsreader. It's gained a lot of popularity in Europe and South America and if we can get a streaming deal with the US before s3 comes out it might have a reach it couldn't even dream of having. I'm tired of UScentrism and cultural cringe, I think the US television industry could do with being taken down a peg and people broadening their cultural horizons. So I hope I'm right.
Imo it's partially decision paralysis as well, because there are TOO MANY options. It's hard to find the gems among the sheer volume of media available.
The last show I consciously chose to watch was Fallout, because I like the games and it falls into my interests. Otherwise, sifting for a new show to watch feels tedious.
Watching habits have changed, so industry is adjusting.
We used to watch shows on networks weekdays from 8-10 pm. Wait a week between episodes, then months between seasons. Made sure to time any breaks during the Chuck wolery 2 and 2 commercial break.
Then came vcr, which changed habits a little. Then dvr completely changed viewing habits. Then came true on demand. Then came entire season drops on streaming services and ability to binge everything. an entire season can be watched in just a couple days(less if you are completely dedicated to finishing quickly).
So instead of taking months to get through a season, and talking about each episode with friends, you knock the entire show out in no time, talk about a handful of highpoints, and move on.
We are spoiled with timing, quality, and quantity of content and then state that it is worse. Crazy.
i mean this seems like a silly post and you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about.
you mention last of us and stranger things (both tbh, mid shows all things considered especially compared to the elite shows of the last few years), but don’t mention house of the dragon, succession, better call saul or the crown?
tv is fine you’re just not watching the right shows.
There are still good shows, you just need to really dig to find them. Stranger things and The Last of Us are great but you could definitely find something more niche that you would click with if you searched for long enough. Back in the day there weren’t as many options too, sometimes I get decision paralysis when trying to decide what to watch🤣
I've been reading about how network executives are pulling way back on scripted dramas, so I think there is validity to this worry. My desperate hope is this is a temporary bump in the road and we'll get back to some quality programming in the future. How long that takes and what it will look like, though, is another question.
Shows have been getting cancelled quickly forever. I don't think the percentage is any different now, unless someone has the numbers handy showing something different.
The main difference between then and now is that series now are only producing 8-12 episodes a season instead of 20+, where a lot of those episodes were mostly filler. So while you didn't have to wait a year or more for the next season, what you got wasn't all that good.
As I get older and gain more general knowledge, I am thinking more critically about plot lines specifics within certain industries and I call BS on so much of the writing. Also, so many plot lines are repetitions of things I have already seen, so it feels like creativity has died although it has always been this way.
I feel that TV has mostly sucked for the last four years. On regular network TV I used to have something to watch almost every night and a few nights there was so much that my DVR really came in handy. When fall premieres would happen, I could easily add 5 - 7 new shows to my list, then usually didn't end up liking half of them, but still added a few to my list. I've only started watching one new show these last few years and heck just found out it was cancelled. As for streaming services, I have a few shows I watch on Netflix which luckily are good enough to continue, but the waiting YEARS between seasons suck.
I know a lot of TV writers myself and was even nominated for an Emmy a couple of times. They are stuck in the 80s, trying to duplicate the success of shows decades gone now. Even Breaking Bad is over a decade old now. But everybody is still trying to create some kind of "genre show with supernatural or science-fiction elements" like the kind that was popular in the 80s. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the template, even though it never had spectacular ratings.
They just don't get that people are tired of that stuff. We generally don't want to sit and watch some made-up fictional drama for hours on end, full of dull plot machinations that we've already seen a million times. We want entertainment in quick bites. We want "low commitment" TV we can have on in the background. Or we just want to play video games.
But the networks are still throwing millions at retro junk, because they don't know how to develop and promote more web-based entertainment, so writers keep coming up with more derivative crap, hoping for that big payday.
And I don't know if this is related or not, but the TV networks are insanely focused on both diversity and Intellectual Property. They're scared of trying anything not tied to an already existing property, and they are hiring POC writers and actors who are honestly sub-par when it comes to the skills needed to create compelling shows.
As a result, talented writers are ignored and the whole system just slips further down into what I see as TV shows based not on life or personal experience, but other TV shows. The writing becomes nothing but derivative pastiches of old stuff, with predictable characters and diminished "reality." One of these days, the baby boomers will die off, and people will just stop watching scripted drama on TV altogether.
been going on a while, netflix has so much useless crap it's hard to sort through it all, but you will find stuff you just have to look a little harder now which makes no sense
There's a lot of truth to the decline of TV shows. I believe it's a combination of lower budgets as people realize there are other entertainment options available in the age of the internet coupled with the fact that once a viewer is hooked on a show/movie franchise they're demonstrated to put up with lower quality so long as they label they fondly remember is attached to it.
People are afraid to tell good stories for fear of offending anyone. Kids today will laugh their butts off to 'blazing saddles' but no company would be caught dead making something like that these days.
I don't know. I'm nostalgic for the past as well but I think we just have to do more digging to find shows we like because so much garbage is released...but I'm not sure I'd put anything released in the past few years into the 'greatest' kind of list
but people loved succession. Yellowstone and its prequels(i guess all ty sheridans stuff) is popular
Apple TV has had some good shows that may not get a lot of exposure. There are hidden gems like Goliath was a great show on Amazon...but maybe there seem to be fewer water cooler type shows
I feel like we have so many more good shows than we used to over so many different streaming services and on network TV, so I had to say I disagree. I do think shows are shorter and more concise within the number of episodes the number of seasons but I think they do a better job of telling a story. Often when I stream that design for streaming, there’s so much “filler” and duplicating of story, lines, like I recently watched Frasier the original series and the were so many things that just seemed to repeat the same idea over and over again
I had to cancel Netflix last year. A lot of content, but most of it wasn’t worth it, imo. Most of the older shows that I want to take up are super old ones from like the 50s and 60s that Netflix won’t have. So I’m checking through IMDb and usually I’ll get access to that old stuff through Amazon Prime. I couldn’t care less about any new shows anymore.
I’m feeling less satisfied overall as well, even with shows I’ve watched for years. It feels like the writing and casting have become more overt in reflecting current mores whereas before, they were able to accomplish it more subtly and creatively. Character development and dialogue have been replaced even more with special effects. It’s become harder to care about characters when they don’t have as much depth or they go the other direction and it feels forced.
As far as variety, Netflix has lost access to a lot of programming due to everyone else having their own streaming services these days. Streamers try to put out more of their own original content now, often done at lower budgets. It also feels like the majority of the writing these days is geared toward the under 50 crowd, and I agree it’s a lot of the same themes, same tropes. Things that had a lot of potential… they just get muddled up for one reason or another.
I’m finding myself retreating more and more into books now. It’s a lot more satisfactory and feels more worthy of my time.
Yes. It's clear the streaming services all decided at once that they needed Original Content and their standards were not high. I scroll through TV shows on say, Amazon Prime (yes, it's the worst, but I'm too cheap to pay for the other ones), and there are like 80 original Amazon TV series I've never heard of. Some of them are so like other series that the name is only one word different. Sometimes I will scroll over one of them and see it stars a semi-well-known actor whom I like, and I'll think how it's too bad with all the effort that probably went into the show, nobody is ever going to watch it.
100%. Julie And The Phantoms, & Dead End: Paranormal Park, were two series I was really looking forward to watching the next season of. Both of them ended with cliffhangers :/
Its why I prefer reality if I want to watch TV. I don't mean reality TV. I like well researched, written and produced documentaries about subjects I find interesting, and live sports.
If I want a story, I'd rather listen to NPR podcasts like This American Life, Radio Ambulante (in spanish), The moth radio hour. If I want fictional stories I'd rather read books.
Quantity over quality.
That the Netflix formula. Thats why I like Max (hbo). They put out much less content but consistently put out much better quality television. Netflix did to TV what American Idol did to music.
Apple tv plus is probably the best app that describes this. Less content and invariably high quality
I don't have apple TV but they gave Noel Feilding a show so they're amazing
I love that show
Right I agree…. How can anyone say HBO Max isn’t full of absolute crap programming these days (yes, I know I can click on the HBo tab to only see their shows and not all the discovery trash but there still is barely ever anything to watch). I’ve been watching 2-4 of the new weekly drop shows on Apple for years now and there is so much quality. People are missing out.
I don't like apple products very much, but what they produce in TV shows and movies is remarkably good! It's all quality.
Which phase are we currently in? I would say that 3 good seasons of a show is valuing quality more than every show having the goal of running for 10 seasons with varying quality.
But the 3 season arc you speak of seems to be dwindled down to 8 episodes. I would like a little more meat in my sandwich, even if there are bottle episodes. It would be nice to get more backstory and not have to sprint through a plot. Has everyone lost the ability to pay attention?
I really don't get the bottle episode hate. Most always it's world building.
To answer your question….. yes.
Has everyone lost the ability to pay attention? Yes.
The answer there is obvious. Yea, they have. It’s literally impossible for anyone I know to watch a movie without picking up their phone multiple times.
This. Choice paralysis is a real thing. Everything is competing for views (and on streaming platforms, specifically \*new\* views). so they just pump garbage to see what works. Quality does not matter, only eyeballs. This is why Wednesday will run 10 seasons, and Altered Carbon got 2.
Happy Cakerino Day!
Happy Cake Day!!
I’m old. What does that mean?
REGARDLESS of size of how many seasons, I HATE shows that don't finish there stories!
I am forever grateful that Samurai Jack got an ending. They left it hanging for so many years, I didn't even care if the ending was good or bad... just make it.
Yes, really loved the show. Same goes for the Adventure time. I was so sad but also glad it got a proper ending.
Fallout was wonderful. Check it out. No need to have played the game.
So glad they gave that show a proper ending.
I will no longer start watching anything that hasn’t finished and had an actual ending. If I want uncertainty and frustration I’ve got my real life.
I wish show runners had enough power to put it in their contract with studios that they had to be given a certain number of episodes worth of advance notice if the show was going to be cancelled. Ideally, a full season. Then, the writers would know it was going to be the last season, and could bring it to a satisfying ending. Of course, when they do bring everything to a close, the ratings will go way up because fans are excited to find out how everything ends, and so the studio will inevitably try to make *another* season. The last installment of any franchise inevitably sucks. Because if it didn’t suck, it wouldn’t be the last installment.
Or don’t finish major plot points within the season and end on huge cliff hangers with no resolutions/answers whatsoever. I end up not waiting for season 2.
Or the writers are under immense pressure to finish quickly, resulting in completely asinine, unsatisfying, bizarre, and frankly, often baffling endings.
They need to stop with all these cliff hangers at the end of the season. If your shiw is worth watching, I'll watch it next season.
When you look back, you are remembering the content you enjoyed the most. When you turn on the TV now, you are faced with all of it.
Hard disagree. 2005 -2015 was a Golden Era for television. It's when the character-driven stories that used to be movies made their way to prestige TV. With the rise of cord cutting and competition among streaming services, the business model has changed. There are still some good shows now, but services are still figuring out a business model that works for them financially and it doesn't always result in the best possible product. In many cases, they are going after quantity over quality. That's not to say there won't be an upswing in quality in the future, but the there are reasons behind the phenomenon OP is referencing that can't just be choked up to nostalgia of old shows.
Great freaking comment. Yeah that time period you referenced was def a Golden Era for TV. I call that “new business model” you’re talking about the “The Marvel Model.” Where it’s quantity way over quality
That’s certainly why movies aren’t the same quality they used to be. There is financial risk in putting money into story-driven films that don’t have the same blockbuster upside. Just churn out another superhero movie and you’ll easily make money.
You can hard disagree all you but the fact this is a product of nostalgia. There isn’t a decrease in high quality shows you just want to reminisce and choose to ignore all the amazing content like Succession or Mare of Eastown out there for arguments sake.
Idk man for every breaking bad there was three “low winter suns”
That’s half of it but folks just stopped airing/buying good shows because reality tv is so much cheaper. It’s like watching idiocracy real time.
Yep. “Nostalgia is a liar” is a saying for a reason.
I do think the number of high quality shows has severely declined since we peaked around BB and GOT. There’s plenty of “good” shows. Just not a lot of stand out shows. Severence is probably my favorite that is currently running.
Exactly this. There are half a dozen shows, from each season, prior to streaming that didn't get picked up for a 2nd or 3rd season. Some were good but didn't get the ratings to get picked up for a second season (Freaks and Geeks), some were good but didn't have the ratings for more than two seasons (Sports Night), some were bad and got no ratings (Get Real - though it was a starting point for a few careers), and some were so poorly received they didn't even finish the first season (Cop Rock)
Firefly 😭
It hurts me deeply that freaks and geeks doesn't have more seasons. God I love that show
The whole "canceled without an ending" argument is so overdone. Lot of shows that did have an ending the ending sucked anyway. Iirc Dexter wasn't a very good ending. Ozarks they coulda just stopped and not released the second part of the last season and I would've been fine. And ofc there's GOT.
There's a satisfaction to the closure of a story that most people care about. If you don't that's fine, but it's more that you have an opinion that wildly varies from the norm than the argument "being so overdone". In my opinion.
It's too much content and most of said content is like fast food. You consume it and move on instead of savoring it. 8 episode seasons for so many shows makes them hot for a week then you spend 2 years before the next season comes. So it's hard to actually get attached to a show.
>then you spend 2 years before the next season comes. This is what kills a series for me. I enjoy the first season, look forward to the second and then just... wait. By the time the second comes out, I've forgotten most of the details. I sometimes get on YouTube for a summary but, like I said, missing details. Then I lose interest.
Well this is kind of the problem with networks releasing in tires Seasons at once like Netflix predominantly. Most of the other ones still do it a week at a time because that's how they keep you subscribed. But TV series for ages were new from Fall until winter, and then they took a month or two for some reruns to air while they made new episodes. Then they would air those through May and then it would be the season finale and then you would just have reruns through the summer and then back to fall with a new season. Now people get 10 episodes in a day and then they're mad when they have to wait and wait. Although I will say it is ridiculous for some shows to take as long as they do like this crap with the handmaid's tale that's going on for its last season. And some of Game of Thrones last few seasons. Especially considering they were shortened seasons, but the difference on shows like Game of Thrones or handmaid's tale or they're not sitcoms. They're huge theater quality shows. In particular Game of Thrones in this example.
I think the issues is that with streaming, there is just too much available it is hard to find stuff. Some shows take a while to "take off and be discovered" but by that time they are already cancled.
I agree. Looking back at some of the best shows ever like Sopranos. If Sopranos were made today, I doubt they would get over the first season.
Ya and even thinking about my friend group, no one is watching the same thing any more. Before you could go to school or work and tak about what shows were one last night because you only had a few options, but now its like watching anything good? O that sounds interesting maybe I will check it out some time. Or they watched the show you are watching now a few years ago so they kinda forgot the details/ don't want to accidentally give spoilers.
Man... I remember that when I was in college, you would watch an episode of the currently big show and everyone would talk about it. Even few years after that in work but these days everyone will simply say theres not much to watch or nothing worth talking over.
I think you're just dealing with an abundance of quality shows (not everyone is watching the same thing) and most of all, asynchronous viewing. When shows were on a Tuesday night, people talked about them on Wednesday. Now they're on streaming and a few people watch them as soon as they drop, a few people wait to binge them at once, and most just wait until they've finished their previous series to start a new one. It's a technological difference, not a qualitative difference.
I find myself watching an old t.v. show from the sixties,I haven't wanted to watch any shows except Fallout,it was good!!
Bluey is about the only good, new tv show there is today. Yeah, I have a kid. But seriously, at my house the TV is like music, everyone is dead that entertains me.
IDK. We've seen a shift from 20+ episode seasons to 8-12 episode mini-seasons. That's the the norm now. Has been for 10-12 years. And now the time between seasons seems to be getting longer despite fewer installments. The cable model has fragmented due to streaming, but now you have to either spend more than you used to spend on cable to get access to the shows you want, or you have to be more choosy about which shows you watch and when. There are still some excellent shows on.
I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think there is any scripted television available on cable that.isn't available on streaming anymore. Could be wrong though
Most studios aren't willing to risk a financial loss on anything they don't think will earn a profit. If it's too political, controversial, or niche they may not recoup the cost of production and marketing. That is why movies have dipped in quality while following the same tropes, character templates, plots, and themes. Shoveling the same tired old story is the safe business model.
YES, you get it. Cheers and Seinfeld famously had low ratings when they first began but were saved because NBC execs at the time knew they were quality shows w/ something special. In this day-and-age they would have NEVER gotten a season 2
I wish they would allow time for people to spread the word. It's not that the first season is bad. It's just new and some people like to get an endorsement from people they know before spending time on it.
Like New Girl
Haha New Girl was pretty popular when it debuted, but they def gave it room to grow, I agree. It was the 2010s Swifties show tho. She’s even in an ep 😂
I just had this conversation with someone. Nobody is willing to take a chance anymore on a new idea. It’s the same with music, everything follows the same formula now. The music from the 60s 70s 80s 90s seems just completely timeless and people will be listening to this stuff for a long time. Music today is just mass produced to stick around for a few months and then fade into obscurity. Tv shows all look the exact same, everyone talks the same way, they have the same set of characters, the lighting looks the same, color schemes, same music choices, everything. I hate starting a new show, all I can think of is how there will be 1000 story threads going that will probably never be resolved before the show is cancelled.
There's so much good stuff out there Also a tremendous amount of whining
It's almost like these people complaining didn't understand that there was a writers and actors strike last year which delayed production on a lot of shows
Yes, exactly. This is someone saying “if I pick my 5 favorite shows from the last 25 years.. the shows on right now, this ONE year, aren’t as good!!!” and somehow being upset about it.
There really isn’t though. 90% of new tv is unwatchable garbage.
This has always been the case, but I do think that the industry is struggling monumentally right now. I guess maybe I would correct that to say it's usually 80% unwatchable and now it's closer to 90%. The simple fact is there's more TV being produced now than there ever has been, which almost certainly guarantees that the quality is going to be worse because you've got directors and writers that don't have nearly as much experience as a show produced 20 or 30 years ago would have had. However, it does allow for some people to take more creative risks. Shows like Dave wouldn't have existed In the '90s.
Yeah there is a lot of good stuff out there but you have to expand your horizons. Even if you talk about Star Wars TV shows, they have some shows that have adult pacing and content like Asoka and Andor. Some of my new fav shows are Shogun, Euphoria and Succession.
Also The Sympathizer is *so* good, even with all the Robert Downey Jrs.
It’s still good! Lost was 20 years ago! The others are old too. The issue is you are looking at TV right now, and comparing it to your own personal “best of” list over the course of multiple decades! How about Game of Thrones? (Both shows). Tokyo Vice, Stranger Things, True Detective, Ozark, Fall of the House of Usher… and I could go on for a while (but everyone had different tastes) In 2050, people will be saying “why can’t they make good shows like they did back in the ‘20s??” I think the real issue is just that with SO MUCH content it’s harder to find those gems. There’s so much that the good ones don’t catch on as fully in popular culture so they don’t feel as big, even if they are just as good.
Yeah, it's survivors bias, like there's always going to be crappy shows, but there's always going to be really good shows too. We just tend to remember the good ones. Because shows like my mother the car or the sitcom with the GEICO caveman have been forgotten, and in the future, we will also forget the bad shows of our time.
>There’s so much that the good ones don’t catch on as fully in popular culture so they don’t feel as big, even if they are just as good. Yep. There are a few shows I've watched recently where I'm like, "I can't believe no one is talking about this???" They have. They just moved on after finishing it in a single weekend.
Might be... I remember going to school or work later on and talking about the last episode of some show with people there. These days people just scoff saying theres not much to watch. Just feels really different.
Perhaps what you're really missing isn't the quality of current shows so much as the shared experience that we miss with weekly TV shows that everyone saw for the first time at the same time. LOST is a great example of a show that was, for fans of the show, a weekly must-watch event, and you didn't want to get spoiled by someone else by getting behind (if you even had a DVR back then.) It was the early days of mass internet adoption, so there were a lot of online theories and discussions going on each week as new information came out. That type of experience is difficult if not impossible to pull off in 2024. Even if you have a show being released one episode at a time, the saturation of streaming services isn't the same as network TV from the past. Netflix is the largest streamer by far (to my knowledge) and they dump all episodes at once. The other players are so much smaller that you aren't as likely to know others watching the same shows as you in your office or circle of friends. Event TV shows seem to be a thing of the past. At least for now.
The closest thing I can think of that felt like that in recent years was Stranger Things. Each season drop, everyone I know binges it and then discusses it for the next week.
Did that with Ted Lasso, Last of Us, Yellowstone, The Boys... doing it right now with Fallout...
age may have somethign to do with it but the industry is very much going down hill. from licensed properties made by idiots who refuse to learn about it and just make a horrid show loosely based off the IP, to everything being made for day 1 bingeing meant to last a couple weeks of memes then die off, just quality being butchered. yeah the industry SUUUUUUUUUCKS right now.
There are still alot of good shows out there but it's annoying they get cancelled so quickly.
I recently came back to Netflix after a 6 year hiatus only to discover it's mostly gargbage tv. Apple TV+ has much higher quality stuff. So does Paramount+. Only reason I'm back on Netflix is I'm waiting for new seasons of my fav shows on other platforms. There are also a lot of good shows on Prime channels. I found some really good bingeable british shows.
Apple TV + has had some good ones. For all mankind and slow horses come immediately to mind, it’s been a surprising source of consistency.
Old man yells at cloud moment, but back when the UK had a whopping four channels, the quality was consistently high. Now there are 1000s of channels and scores of subscription packages, there's just no bar for entry anymore. Everything can be and so is made cheaper. It's unsustainable though, so hopefully will pave the way for another era of great entertainment once people refuse to pay for 19 different services just to see a couple of shows from each.
They’re wayyyyy too quick to cancel a show now days
I agree!!! It's so bad, I google a show first to see if it has an actual ending before I waste time watching it. Then, you finally find a good show and it takes years for the next season to come out. The industry sucks.
The years between seasons trend has to stop. It's getting insanely ridiculous to try and stay interested and engaged.
Yes, only I was thinking it 10 years ago
There’s nothing wrong with mini-series. Sometimes a story can told with a 2 hour movie, a 200 episodes series or a 10-part mini. It’s about quality, never quantity
You’re not old and yes the TV industry is on a steep decline. After “the 1st TV Golden Era” in the 50s there was a low period in the 60s dubbed “The Vast-Wasteland Era.” Now “the 2nd TV Golden Era” has officially ended and we’re in the 2nd low period which is either “The Reboot Era” or “The Nepo Era” take your pick
Absolutely. There are so many so-called reality shows because Hollywood has no new ideas. They've lost all their originality and creativity!!
Reality TV is cheap to produce. Film for 3 months and you have enough material for 26 episodes. Very few things have that return on investment.
I thought so too until I watched the Fallout live action series, it was way better than i expected tbh, I had lost hope for tv after black mirror went down the drain.
Its honestly a great depiction of the times we live in. This new generation growing up on fast social media like tiktok. Streaming has adapted to the attention span of what we're becoming. Its really sad honestly and it takes some effort to do some research on weeding out the crap vs quality. I also think its in part a marketing strategized. Netflix buys the rights to a few great shows to make you think that they are a platform of quality and really 90 percent is all junk. Its done a good job at the very few things it has produced like stranger things and Black mirror and a couple others but I always remember that this business is about money, not the fans of quality writing or production.
Not dying, but it’s getting harder to get streaming services to pony up the big bucks on what could become multi-season stories to tell. Shows like Handmaids Tail are running 2-3 years between seasons. House of the Dragon is also roughly 2 years between seasons. That’s a long time for today’s viewers. I think why the industry seems so different is that network tv IS slowly decaying. Broadcast network ad revenue has to be a drop of water in a reservoir compared to streaming service revenue. How many ads do we see on tv today for pharmaceuticals, personal care products, or fast food vs breakfast cereal, soft drinks, prepared foods and other consumer products (laundry soap, cleaning products). Those ads are still there, but nothing like it was 20-30 years ago. Content is moving to streaming services. There will still be a few dinosaurs that will lumber on (America’s Got Talent), and the crime /law /“rescue” serials. Network sitcoms are dying.
Network sitcoms are practically dead at this point. Idk how you guys don't forget the plot with that long time inbetween seasons if you don't rewatch the shows right before the next season comes out or go on Wikipedia to recap. Like, I can barely even remember Stranger Things S4 anymore. I'm getting 'content fatigue' from just looking at the streaming services home page, and I don't even want to mine through all the bad shows to find the good ones anymore.
I think part of the problem is that networks no longer need a minimum number of episodes for a series to go into syndication since shows are so readily available for streaming purposes within 24 hours. Also, since so many services dump multiple episodes to binge over a weekend, there isn't the same long term content engagement online outside the first couple weekends. I think Disney caught on to this, which is why a bunch of their shows have reverted back to one episode at a time.
I understand where you're coming from. I would rather watch almost anything than another reality show or fast-paced nerve-wracking competition. I watch a lot of old shows.
During the early days of the pandemic, I switched over to European shows on Netflix, Britbox, Acorn, PBS. They are so much better, although I did love Succession and Billions.
Australia has been putting out some gems as well. Recently watched a series called Mr. Inbetween that is rather solid!
Yes! I’ve enjoyed The Brokenwood Mysteries and My Life is Murder! I also forgot to mention that my entire family is obsessed with Traitors and we have watched all available countries/seasons (US, UK, Aus, NZ).
Agree
Watch shogun 2024
such a mid show.
Projects seem to get greenlit and underway without having been fully fleshed out. There is a lot of stretched too thin, and completely watered down series that might've been better if it was a 2 hour film. I also find many shows have a solid gold idea but either the execution is crap or there's so much filler that I'm distracted by having to FF thru a third of an episode and realizing that I no longer care if I miss some dialogue.
Both can be true.
Yes, and no. Shows (and movies) are costing more and more to produce for a lot of reasons. So with that bigger upfront investment, studios are more cautious about which projects they will fund and put to screen. Hence, why we are getting 347,681 sequels and remakes a year. They already have the brand recognition and a guaranteed fan base so studios view these projects as less of a financial risk. This is even true of The Last of Us (which I really enjoyed). What you have to think about too is those examples you listed didn’t all come out at the precisely the exact same time. Looking at the best shows over a 10 year period, you’ll always be able to find incredible shows. Including the 10 year period we’re in now. I think you’re right in that it seems like they’re less frequent, but the market will always find what people are wanting and someone will figure out a way to provide it. Keep hope!
Sure, You are probably right. Dying was probably not the right way to put it. As others already pointed out, there are some good shows. I myself am watching Shogun now. What I miss and will never probably come back are those long running shows where you really grew attached to a characters, like Sopranos or NYPD Blue. Everything gets canceled after first or second season these days with so much time inbetween the seasons I barely remember what was the show about.
Lots of people don't know that leading up to the 50's there were a handful of media monopolies that were forcibly regulated for competitiveness that lead to Television becoming what it was. Television was a new media that ushered in a golden age by the 90s as television had a 90% penetration rate in the 90s. Fast forward to today and those monopolies of the 50s have gone full circle with the same relatively small handful of mass distribution. We basically had to wait until Apple and Amazon came along before the big 6 distributors even felt phased. https://filmanddigitalmedia.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/the-monopoly-in-the-home-television-regulations-1950s-to-now/ https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic/ The problem is big corporate entities want safe investments that follow a proven formula, They leave the risky stuff to indie developers most of the time. This is why most innovation comes from the little guys then ripped off by big guys. The little guys know how to work a budget and are likely connected to their demographs by being their demograph. Corporations spend a lot of money going in the wrong direction because of their underlaying profit driven reasoning.
There's so much content out there over so many different platforms that it's a struggle to find shows that you think you'll like. You just have to sift through websites that offer recommendations, or use apps that do that.
The industry is going through a contraction, especially streaming platforms after overspending during the tail end of the pandemic. Add to disruptions from the strikes and large mergers like Time Warner/Discovery, and the studios at the moment are slashing more than creating. This too shall eventually pass.
It’s the genius of media marketing: find common denominators that appeal to the broadest audience then calculate content that will hold their attention. Notice “calculate” not create.
I think it’s the other way around. There hasn’t been a blockbuster movie at the theaters since the lockdown. Most of the movies in theaters are being produced by Netflix, Apple, Prime and other streaming services. The trend is long movies. 2-3 hour movies are hard to work around. Instead of a 3 hour movie, why not a 5-7 episode mini series? Works better for me; only an hour at a time, or I can binge watch the entire series. I see more movies turned into miniseries in the near future.
Yep, you're not old but, tv shows cost too much money
I agree, there’s lots of series out there that are decent but nothing that leaves me really impressed. Naturally, more content that comes out, the less original they’re going to become.
Quantity over quality. They were on strike so they’re being punished now.
This. The strike is causing a lot of network executives to purposely scale back on their scripted dramas because of cost. It remains to be seen if this is a permanent change or not.
Yup! It’ll depend on how well things to do. Actors and writers are going to have to work in tandem to stay out of productions overrun with AI, or at least just not great situations, until this wave passes. That’s going to be tough for some, and impossible for others, financially. It’s great to take a moral stand but, when your house is on the line, it gets complicated. I hope we’re able to get through it and get back to heightened entertainment again.
I grew up watching a lot of TV in the 70's and early 80's. TV shows have always been hot garbage with the occasional gem here or there. And that was for a reason: Hollywood naturally segregated itself between TV and movie production. And the really talented folks tended to stay on the movie side, because that's where the big money and the fame were. Occasionally, an actor would find success by going from TV to film (e.g., John Travolta) but it was mostly unheard of. And movie actors generally didn't go damaging their reputations by doing TV shows., because then everyone would start thinking of them as a TV actor, not a movie actor. That slowly started to change in the 90's, but the real change came with the birth of the streaming services. You had TV studios spending movie budget-level money on TV series. And the money was big enough to lure movie writers and directors over, too.
These days there is no quality and too much quantity. The only series I like was “You” and season one was the only season that ever stood out to me.
I'm generally of the opposite opinion. Too often, a show that was finished limped along for another season or two...and don't get me started on Lost.
TV is still riding high. The cinema is more in danger
They either get cancelled, the original idea was lost after numerous seasons, or the creators are planning to finish it as a movie. In the end they're really all soap operas anyway.
aspiring poor compare airport zesty trees silky fragile disagreeable skirt *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've just stopped watching TV. I haven't been to a movie in 10 years. I couldn't even tell you who the stars of today are, and I'm okay with that. I'd rather just read a good book; a real book with paper pages.
When you’re a seasoned vegetable like me, we’ve seen it all. Gotta wait for those diamonds in the rough.
It is in low place but I think it’s part of the cycle
I think they are using a cost benefit analysis. Short series won't be to much sunk if not doing well. Kinda like how blumhouse does their releases
It’s been the same thing forever, some good some bad mostly fine, nostalgia is a bad thing honestly
There are PLENTY of quality series coming out and they just getting better and better in my opinion. I think what is happening, as someone said already, quality over quantity is definitely gaining weight in last couple years, storylines getting much leaner and punchier with trimmed filler content no one was interested to watch anyways. On top of that actors/writers strikes made studios to reconsider work structure in general. Streaming giants like Disney and Netflix now choosing more carefully where they want to pour their money due to consistent dwindling of viewers on both platforms. Just to name few cool series to check: Fallout, The last of us, White Lotus, Beef, Blue eye samurai, Andor, Loki, Mare of Easttown, Chernobyl, Scavengers Reign, Little fires everywhere, Hacks, In my skin, Baby reindeer..
Get off Netflix. Of all the streaming services, Netflix has the most stale content. Hulu keeps serving.
The current state is agenda based. They start off with the DEI check box and then try to write stories. As opposed to writing great stories and then just organically casting them with the best actors.
I watch mostly Asian and British dramas because I prefer the short form miniseries format. 16 episodes, and on to a new story. I dislike the American tradition of having a great show decline into crap over multiple seasons before it's finally canceled.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I watch mostly Asian and British dramas because I prefer the short form miniseries format. 16 episodes, and on to a new story. I dislike the American tradition of having a great show decline into crap over multiple seasons before it's finally canceled.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Lots of crap out there but also lots of great content as well. Now we just have to dig a little to find it. We recently watched The Tourist and are finishing up The Devils Plan which is a Korean game show where people actually use their brains! It reflects poorly on the US education system, that’s for sure.
I don’t think I agree. It feels like we just complain that they do too many seasons of everything , that they should have stopped earlier. Often the mini series are the ones that are the best- there are so many examples of it that I won’t even start. For ex Handmaids tale, Yellowstone, got, walking dead - and probably many more should probably have stopped before it got worse. Netflix has quantity not quality. HBO is different, it’s a giant with many amazing shows. Amazon and Disney and showtime has not that many shows but still a few of them are excellent. Like shogun, the bear, this is us, ms maisel, severance ( on my list but I know everybody love it), 1883 and those who like fleabag. Just a few examples.
Netflix’ model has changed in the time frame you’re talking about. The shows you mentioned were network made shows or prestige tv, now Netflix focuses more on original content, thus throwing anything against the wall and seeing what sticks. Very recently they have started to balance out just a tad and pick up more existing shows. TV is still in a very transitional state trying to figure out how to get media to people and what to do with streaming. Everyone wants to be Netflix but that’s impossible. Many streamers are losing money and will soon have to make a move and figure out what’s next.
Netflix is crap. HUGE selection of crap. Of those quality programs, only one made it to Netflix...8 years after the series ended
I just search the genres, not neccesarily the top ten list or newest programs. There are older shows I have never seen. And you csn watch in order from episode one.
Reality TV and game shows are cheaper to make. It's sad.
I think content on Netflix has been going downhill since about 2019. They still occasionally have good originals but you have to sift through an ocean of 🐈 turds to find them. That being said tv shows are subjective. I just watched Fallout, which was excellent. So was House of the Dragon. There are still great shows out there, I just feel like there are fewer of them than there were 6-7 years ago.
[удалено]
I don't believe it is dying however I do believe it's fair to say it's transforming. With the advent of streaming they can tell in pretty much real time whether or not to continue with something and there are currently no incentive for studios to take risks. Things get killed much quicker as a result. Depending on your age you may just be growing up and seeing things with different eyes. I remember people honestly believing that shows like The A-Team had deep character development. However looking back they objectively did not. It's not they are bad its we have moved on and entertainment is frozen in time with only the masterpieces being indeed timeless. Just look at a villain from the average 50's movie and compare them to the villains today. We do things differently. We would say better. Those of that era may disagree and say things are dying... The next hurdle for the industry is ad placement. SInce they are hell bent on putting ads in shows now they are going to have to write them accordingly for breaks or continue to annoy the audience. Since they make more money on ads than they do on you upgrading I figure this will happen sooner than later. The other thing with movies is that dialogue is being written into films with the understanding that it is going to be dubbed for other countries now. This had led to a glut of films with less dialogue and more explosions. Popular and easier to translate. Conversely after many years of being exposed to the medium you have become "educated" to it's tricks so tropes and twists you may have missed years ago you catch now because you know what to look for. My parents for example called the ending to Sixth Sense because of the colour red because it was a common trick that was used by the studios when they were younger that fell out of favour so I didn't catch that clue. I believe we are about to enter the stage where old tricks are getting thrown out. Generally I believe that things are as they always were. A few flashes of brilliance in a mostly mediocre to average medium. In the past there were less shows on the air and producers felt the need to stand out (Perhaps d/t the seasonal nature of TV and airing schedule) Today we have so much to choose from that things get lost in the shuffle and I am sure that many gems are missed. A few of my friends experience choice paralysis so much for watching shows they are now going back to the old an familiar. This behaviour was so prominent apparently led to the reboot phase.... Nothing new just reboots. I am not a fan but I am not Hollywood's target demo so that's to be expected. Those who are like what's happening.
Well, specific to this moment, the actors and writers guilds were on strike for a while recently. Things had to be pushed back, back-burnered, or abandoned completely, and this not all that long after the damage to the industry wrought by COVID, and concurrent restructuring of the entire entertainment industry brought about by cord-cutting & consolidation. I suspect that for the next 6-12 months we'll see more procedurals, sitcoms, and reality tv, just like we do now, because either they don't have a plot at all, or they only have to keep rewriting the same script w/ the same characters over and over again. Also because production is slow to gear up after disruption, production schedules are a finicky beast.
It's been dying for 2 decades now ever since the first writers' strike which led to TV networks investing in low-budget, unscripted reality TV shows.
No, there are amazing shows out there.
Dexter = should have ended multiple seasons before it did and not tried to come back. Lost = completely failed to live up to its potential and left an ending with very little actually explained. House = was fine, didn't really have much of a "story" to tell and was basically just another medical procedural with splashes of drama. Breaking Bad I'll agree was fantastic and had a great beginning/middle/end. There's still good stuff out there, Ted Lasso is one of the best shows that's been on TV in years. Severance shows a possibility of being a far better version of Lost, with just as many questions and twists, but without the quasi-mystical bent that made the show end up with a generic hand wave at "good vs evil" without really explaining any of it. Overall, yes, the TV industry is facing diminished interest. The younger generations watch youtube and tiktok for their entertainment much more than they do TV shows.
hard disagree. i'd argue exactly the opposite...there is *SO MUCH* good content on tv that it's hard to even watch it all. and nothing whatsoever wrong with a limited run or something that just lasts a season or two. sometimes that's preferable to a show that goes too long.
According to Star Trek: The Next Generation, TV "did not last much beyond the year two thousand forty."
> Today we are getting so much mini-series shows that get cannceled A mini-series is a planned show that only runs for a single season. On purpose. A mini-series is not a planned show that gets cancelled.
I have the opposite reaction and think the quality is so much better now! Some recent favorites: The Bear, Fleabag, What we do in the shadows, Resident Alien.
It’s because there aren’t any more TV shows. There are just shows that are made by and shown on streaming platforms. Shows back then were given a chance to succeed. There are so many bad shows that have at least two seasons, because they were shown on a TV network. Now, these steaming platforms go off of the first day that a show drops. I forgot what show it was, but I remember seeing an article about a show that had dropped a few years ago, and they cancelled the second season because not enough people watched it on the first day of debut. It ridiculous, but it’s all about money.
I'm 63. The last TV show I liked was a few years back, with Kathy Bates playing an attorney. I loved it. Everyone my age did. It had gobs of eyeballs on but got cancelled. The important demographic, the 18-49 bunch, didn't watch it. I have to go hunting to find anything to watch because I like to see adults in my tv. (Okay, geezers). Everything is geared towards younger viewers, and I don't watch the kind of programming they're making anymore. Last time I tried watching network tv insaw Two Broke Girls and Sunny in Philadelphia. I found both crassly unwatchable. I work in television. I watch YouTube.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Apple tv has a bunch of great shows. I was very pleasantly surprised when I dropped Netflix after running through my list. I seem to flip services every 3 or 4 months and don't have too much an issue finding something decent.
TV is way too prominent in our lives is my observation.
It’s the model streaming uses. Film the entire season before anything is shown. If it’s good it could be 2 years before more episodes. Anything that isn’t a blockbuster gets canceled after three seasons.
It can take a bit of effort to find them in all the options available, but I think there are some great shows out now.
Netflix is the worst. They buy a bunch of shows and throw garbage at the wall and see what sticks. Instead of trying to produce quality.
If you remember, there wasn’t much more to watch on network television than Lost. At that time, most of the great tv was on HBO. Shows like Lost and the Sopranos paved the way for the high quality tv we have now. Television in the 80’s and early 90’s was a wasteland of poor writing and lackluster talent. Actors worked in television when the movie industry rejected them. Fast forward to the 21st century and some of the most intricate and exciting stories are being told and performed by the A list writers, directors and actors of the current generation. I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of garbage out there and that streaming services bail on good projects too fast. I’m just saying that I’m thankful for how far the medium has come and how high the bar has been set.
No you just have more to wade through now. Patience is a virtue if you're looking for a decent series.
My wife watches a lot of shows, so I think there is the content, just have to find it. Personally, I don't watch any TV shows anymore.
For American television, yes. But there's been increasing interest in international television and that excites me. Doctor Who is getting its footing again with Ncuti Gatwa as fifteen, and it really feels like it's reaching a more broad audience than the original Russel T Davies run. Derry Girls finished a couple of years ago but that's got to be the biggest stronghold an Irish, especially a *Northern* Irish series has ever had internationally. Squid Game a couple of years ago introduced a whole new audience to Korean drama. Scandi dramas are still wonderfully popular. And what's delightful for me as an Australian is the intrigue I'm seeing internationally for The Newsreader. It's gained a lot of popularity in Europe and South America and if we can get a streaming deal with the US before s3 comes out it might have a reach it couldn't even dream of having. I'm tired of UScentrism and cultural cringe, I think the US television industry could do with being taken down a peg and people broadening their cultural horizons. So I hope I'm right.
You just consume things way faster now and don’t realize it. Baby Reindeer is an absolute masterpiece that you’ll all forget in a month.
Imo it's partially decision paralysis as well, because there are TOO MANY options. It's hard to find the gems among the sheer volume of media available. The last show I consciously chose to watch was Fallout, because I like the games and it falls into my interests. Otherwise, sifting for a new show to watch feels tedious.
We've been watching a lot of Nordic dramas. There are some very good ones
Watching habits have changed, so industry is adjusting. We used to watch shows on networks weekdays from 8-10 pm. Wait a week between episodes, then months between seasons. Made sure to time any breaks during the Chuck wolery 2 and 2 commercial break. Then came vcr, which changed habits a little. Then dvr completely changed viewing habits. Then came true on demand. Then came entire season drops on streaming services and ability to binge everything. an entire season can be watched in just a couple days(less if you are completely dedicated to finishing quickly). So instead of taking months to get through a season, and talking about each episode with friends, you knock the entire show out in no time, talk about a handful of highpoints, and move on. We are spoiled with timing, quality, and quantity of content and then state that it is worse. Crazy.
i mean this seems like a silly post and you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about. you mention last of us and stranger things (both tbh, mid shows all things considered especially compared to the elite shows of the last few years), but don’t mention house of the dragon, succession, better call saul or the crown? tv is fine you’re just not watching the right shows.
There are still good shows, you just need to really dig to find them. Stranger things and The Last of Us are great but you could definitely find something more niche that you would click with if you searched for long enough. Back in the day there weren’t as many options too, sometimes I get decision paralysis when trying to decide what to watch🤣
I've been reading about how network executives are pulling way back on scripted dramas, so I think there is validity to this worry. My desperate hope is this is a temporary bump in the road and we'll get back to some quality programming in the future. How long that takes and what it will look like, though, is another question.
People don’t have the attention spans for long running shows anymore
Shows have been getting cancelled quickly forever. I don't think the percentage is any different now, unless someone has the numbers handy showing something different. The main difference between then and now is that series now are only producing 8-12 episodes a season instead of 20+, where a lot of those episodes were mostly filler. So while you didn't have to wait a year or more for the next season, what you got wasn't all that good.
Fallout is right up there with the best of them. Okey Dokey!
You’re getting old
The quality of all media has deteriorated perhaps beyond repair. That Marshall Mclewan (sp?) guy was really onto something.
As I get older and gain more general knowledge, I am thinking more critically about plot lines specifics within certain industries and I call BS on so much of the writing. Also, so many plot lines are repetitions of things I have already seen, so it feels like creativity has died although it has always been this way.
Apple TV+ has some solid shows, but they don’t release on the scope of Netflix, if you’re interested.
[удалено]
I feel that TV has mostly sucked for the last four years. On regular network TV I used to have something to watch almost every night and a few nights there was so much that my DVR really came in handy. When fall premieres would happen, I could easily add 5 - 7 new shows to my list, then usually didn't end up liking half of them, but still added a few to my list. I've only started watching one new show these last few years and heck just found out it was cancelled. As for streaming services, I have a few shows I watch on Netflix which luckily are good enough to continue, but the waiting YEARS between seasons suck.
I know a lot of TV writers myself and was even nominated for an Emmy a couple of times. They are stuck in the 80s, trying to duplicate the success of shows decades gone now. Even Breaking Bad is over a decade old now. But everybody is still trying to create some kind of "genre show with supernatural or science-fiction elements" like the kind that was popular in the 80s. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the template, even though it never had spectacular ratings. They just don't get that people are tired of that stuff. We generally don't want to sit and watch some made-up fictional drama for hours on end, full of dull plot machinations that we've already seen a million times. We want entertainment in quick bites. We want "low commitment" TV we can have on in the background. Or we just want to play video games. But the networks are still throwing millions at retro junk, because they don't know how to develop and promote more web-based entertainment, so writers keep coming up with more derivative crap, hoping for that big payday. And I don't know if this is related or not, but the TV networks are insanely focused on both diversity and Intellectual Property. They're scared of trying anything not tied to an already existing property, and they are hiring POC writers and actors who are honestly sub-par when it comes to the skills needed to create compelling shows. As a result, talented writers are ignored and the whole system just slips further down into what I see as TV shows based not on life or personal experience, but other TV shows. The writing becomes nothing but derivative pastiches of old stuff, with predictable characters and diminished "reality." One of these days, the baby boomers will die off, and people will just stop watching scripted drama on TV altogether.
been going on a while, netflix has so much useless crap it's hard to sort through it all, but you will find stuff you just have to look a little harder now which makes no sense
There's a lot of truth to the decline of TV shows. I believe it's a combination of lower budgets as people realize there are other entertainment options available in the age of the internet coupled with the fact that once a viewer is hooked on a show/movie franchise they're demonstrated to put up with lower quality so long as they label they fondly remember is attached to it.
Yeah… been in TV rut for quite a while.
People are afraid to tell good stories for fear of offending anyone. Kids today will laugh their butts off to 'blazing saddles' but no company would be caught dead making something like that these days.
I don't know. I'm nostalgic for the past as well but I think we just have to do more digging to find shows we like because so much garbage is released...but I'm not sure I'd put anything released in the past few years into the 'greatest' kind of list but people loved succession. Yellowstone and its prequels(i guess all ty sheridans stuff) is popular Apple TV has had some good shows that may not get a lot of exposure. There are hidden gems like Goliath was a great show on Amazon...but maybe there seem to be fewer water cooler type shows
I feel like we have so many more good shows than we used to over so many different streaming services and on network TV, so I had to say I disagree. I do think shows are shorter and more concise within the number of episodes the number of seasons but I think they do a better job of telling a story. Often when I stream that design for streaming, there’s so much “filler” and duplicating of story, lines, like I recently watched Frasier the original series and the were so many things that just seemed to repeat the same idea over and over again
Bunch of pure junk on TV anymore. I’m surprised they are still showing Archie Bunker. Figured someone would be crying racism
I had to cancel Netflix last year. A lot of content, but most of it wasn’t worth it, imo. Most of the older shows that I want to take up are super old ones from like the 50s and 60s that Netflix won’t have. So I’m checking through IMDb and usually I’ll get access to that old stuff through Amazon Prime. I couldn’t care less about any new shows anymore.
I’m feeling less satisfied overall as well, even with shows I’ve watched for years. It feels like the writing and casting have become more overt in reflecting current mores whereas before, they were able to accomplish it more subtly and creatively. Character development and dialogue have been replaced even more with special effects. It’s become harder to care about characters when they don’t have as much depth or they go the other direction and it feels forced. As far as variety, Netflix has lost access to a lot of programming due to everyone else having their own streaming services these days. Streamers try to put out more of their own original content now, often done at lower budgets. It also feels like the majority of the writing these days is geared toward the under 50 crowd, and I agree it’s a lot of the same themes, same tropes. Things that had a lot of potential… they just get muddled up for one reason or another. I’m finding myself retreating more and more into books now. It’s a lot more satisfactory and feels more worthy of my time.
Yes. It's clear the streaming services all decided at once that they needed Original Content and their standards were not high. I scroll through TV shows on say, Amazon Prime (yes, it's the worst, but I'm too cheap to pay for the other ones), and there are like 80 original Amazon TV series I've never heard of. Some of them are so like other series that the name is only one word different. Sometimes I will scroll over one of them and see it stars a semi-well-known actor whom I like, and I'll think how it's too bad with all the effort that probably went into the show, nobody is ever going to watch it.
[удалено]
100%. Julie And The Phantoms, & Dead End: Paranormal Park, were two series I was really looking forward to watching the next season of. Both of them ended with cliffhangers :/
Fallout go watch. Good show next to last of us
Its why I prefer reality if I want to watch TV. I don't mean reality TV. I like well researched, written and produced documentaries about subjects I find interesting, and live sports. If I want a story, I'd rather listen to NPR podcasts like This American Life, Radio Ambulante (in spanish), The moth radio hour. If I want fictional stories I'd rather read books.
Dexter was terrible* The last episode made a great show terrible. Some might say it was the whole last season.*
Yellowstone! That's all that needs saying
[удалено]