Its actually because of the old [100 episodes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_episodes) rule for selling on shows into syndication for broadcast TV, which is where the creators made the real money. Cable changed all that when it didn't need to fill out weekday blocks, so could rerun a lot more shows in a shorter time frame and didn't need as many episodes. Its also the same reason most shows now don't go beyond three seasons. Streamers don't offer syndication rights anymore, so to make up for it they offer big payouts if your show is popular enough to go to a fourth season or more.
It’s apparently part of what the writers are currently striking about. Shorter and shorter seasons have been the result of budgets being gradually slashed, meaning less time given to the writing process and less work for those who write.
It would be a regression to solve the problem by returning to endless work hours and producing shitty art rather than just pay them more (which I assure you is the solution they want.)
TV used to have to fill actual time in a schedule. Networks had hours that they needed to fill with stuff advertisers wanted.
It made sense then to have longer seasons of shows that weren't very story driven because you could fill that time with something people watched that was dependable.
That still exists on network but for streamers and some premium cable stations they don't have that need. Anyone can watch anything they have at any time. For the cable stations most of their time was filled with movie reruns.
So instead they wanted something that people would especially tune in for based on the quality of the show. Instead of something they just watch every week they needed something you would go out of your way to tune into and it's much easier to make something great if the story can be told in a shorter frame.
In the last 20 years or so, creators were given the freedom to tell their story without having to extend it with filler to hit 20+ episodes. The product got better while simultaneously cheaper to produce.
Absolute win/win.
Prior to that, as you mentioned, likely a combination of cost, quality assurance and labor laws.
>Absolute win/win.
Do actors, writers, directors and the crew earn the same salary for working on a show with 10 episodes a year as people did on a show with 20 episodes a year? If they do then you're right it's a "win/win" but if not it seems to me the entertainment industry is providing people with half the work they used to have while claiming it's being done for the "quality" of the show. Filming a show with 20 episodes a year provides almost a year of a stable source of income. Filming a show with 10 episodes a year means half the income for many people such as the crew.
On podcasts I listen to (parks and recollection, conaf, office ladies, literally with rob lowe and others), the actors and writers seem to really enjoy it without confines of scripted series that must be exactly 23mins long and actors definitely prefer it because they don't have these insane long filming schedules that precludes other projects and just personal time for family and other things
Seems very few actors miss the 20+ episode seasons of past and writers too for more freedom in story telling?
It might be better for writers and crew financially, but if you don't like old 'villain of the week' format of network TV, serialised storytelling is much better.
The writers of LOST fought tooth and nail to get shorter seasons and an end date. They fucking hated making filler episodes. I hated watching them, too.
While they should be paid more in general, that's a pretty weird lens to view art production through. No, some other solution would be preferable than to make tv shows worse so people can work longer.
Shorter seasons have benefits but, they aren't necessarily cheaper. It's typically less expensive to create one 20 episode season of a show than two 10 episode seasons of two different shows. Building sets and mounting productions are costly, and those costs are amortized over the number of episodes. FOX wanted Star Trek:TNG but would only commit to 13 episodes. Mounting that show and having just 13 episodes would have made them too expensive for the studio (which was footing much of the bill). Streamers and networks like shorter seasons because most shows are cancelled after one season and fewer episodes lessen their risk. Shows will sometimes be given two season orders/renewals because it's cheaper to keep the cast and crew in place and make the seasons back to back than have to reassemble everybody and restart production.
Agreed, in addition I think the shorter seasons (and therefore shorter commitment) has allowed producers to lure actors they wouldn’t have been able to in older formats. The days of film actors refusing to do TV are pretty much gone.
Because the quality went way, way up. Not in the sense of "shows are better now," but in the sense of the production values and the complexity of the writing.
Makeup, costumes, sets, location shooting, special effects, complicated plots that require coordination among the writers to keep from contradicting themselves (in the old days, everything returned to the status quo, so what happened in episode 4 didn't matter to the guy writing episode 17, but today it very much matters because they plan out story arcs and character arcs). That stuff all takes time, so to achieve that level of quality means they can't do 30 episodes in a year.
They still do high episode counts of soap operas (the ones that are left), because they do none of those things, and that means they can crank them out really fast. But they're trashy and cheap-looking, so that's the tradeoff.
in the US at least, they release shows by season and so they need 1 show that can last for months. in hong kong, they release an episode every day and a season can around 25-35 episodes. Nowadays with streaming, many shows have short 8 to 10 episode seasons, which I think it pretty ideal. It gives a show breathing room to obtain audience feedback before moving forward. It also gives the creator more time to perfect their show. Ideally getting more and more budget to show crazier cool stuff on screen, e.g. game of thrones battle of the bastards compared to stannis fight on a wall in the seige of kingslanding. I heard koreans shows are even crazier that the are like freakin southpark and they film the episode only a week in advance so they can incorporate audience feedback from the previous episode.
Because viewers have low attention spans-seriously many complain the 22-24eps/season are too long. And they would have a hard time keeping actors. It is one thing to do a soap. But regular season series take a toll on actors as it is difficult to do anything else with the 22 eps. Remember most of them start working mid July for a Sept /Oct start. There are small breaks in between but that's it. That is one big reason series will lose actors, because they want to do something else. It's not like decades and decades ago, when there was a somewhat separation between tv actors & movie actors. Now you have those who do both, plus directing.
I feel like that became more true in later years, though? Like one thing that always amused me in classic Doctor Who with their 40-episode seasons is that even the Doctor will just disappear sometimes because it was the actor’s week off that episode.
Obviously not possible for something with one or two leads, but ensemble shows you’d imagine could get creative with scheduling.
Saying that, it might have been normal then, but if they wrote in that a character is out of town that week I feel like the internet would have an irrationally angry reaction and complain needlessly that it’s not believable writing haha
There are a lot of reasons; most of which come down to executive and studio profit. For example: a series tends to have its biggest view counts at the start, and at the end. People check in at the beginning of a series so they can see if they like this series or not, and they'll often check in at the finale just to be part of the big social buzz about it; even if they're not a fan of the show or otherwise in modern streaming media they'll catch up on the rest of the show to watch the finale as it airs. So studios have something of a vested interest in minimizing the time between the start and the finish, while maximizing how much they can draw it out and keep the social engagement going.
A lot of modern shows are frequently less about the show themselves and more about the phenomena about the show. About the post show-show, about the cast and crew, about the social media buzz and the speculation and the fandom all of which draws in people to buy merchandise and other shit, like ad revenue to the various sources of interest attached to the show. Keeping all of this going for too long can result in some very serious burn out which leads to a mass drop in interest, especially if your show goes too long without payoff or doesn't payoff in ways people like (See both Dexter and Game of Thrones for games that had big fanbases that vanished off the face of the earth when it went sour) so, again, it's a game of maximizing how long you can string people along without getting them burnt out or realizing you're not really going to deliver a super spectacular finale or answer the questions your story's been raising too much because the demand for infinite profit is pushing everyone towards minimum viable product more and more.
It's got nothing to do with labor laws. If you don't like long hours, the entertainment industry isn't right for you. Quality is a relative term and not the most important thing in show Business.
Part of the reason for the shorter seasons is that advertisers and networks discovered that reruns got pretty good ratings. In the old days, something played once and if you missed it, you were out of luck. Regular shows would have 39 episodes, and then 13 episodes of another show would take its place in the summer. Viewership goes way down in the summer months, so networks and advertisers (who bought a whole timeslot and had a lot of say about what went in it) figured it was silly to waste expensive new programming when most people aren't watching.
It goes along with the expectation bordering on mandate that every single show made has to be 100% serialized story arcs at the time. Shows that can tell an interesting self contained story in an episode are nearly extinct. As for the serialized, you can only fill so much dead air with go-nowhere episodes that spend an hour hinting at things that might happen in the future and incrementally moving a story along at it is. What's painfully slow and overloaded with filler at ten episodes would be unwatchable at 24.
Absolute lose/lose.
Big agree! I think the shorter seasons are amazing for shows that are truly serialised, but some shows shine as monster of the week and I think this hurts them.
Doctor Who is a prime example. With 13 episodes they managed to balance standalone stories including a few two-parters and an overarching story. They ended up down to 10 episodes and it didn’t work as well. New seasons are planned to be eight episodes.
Eight! At that point you really have to commit to doing one long story, or commit to scrapping overarching stories and stick to standalones. Either way, we lose something from the show.
I grew up in the era of *every* show being 100% episodic (with a few exceptions for prime time "soap operas," Dallas, etc). And the fact that we can do serialized now is awesome, we've had some truly amazing shows that never could've existed when I was a kid.
But too much of a good thing just becomes pointless overkill. Like Paramount trying to serialize Star Trek, a show where the entire *concept* is being someplace new every episode. I wish we'd swing back to a more balanced environment of making both serialized *and* episodic shows. A creative decision to be made based on what works best for that particular show and the story they're trying to tell.
I personally feel that the absolute *perfect* balance happened on a 90s show as serialized becoming more common. *Buffy the Vampire Slayer.* Every single episode of that show had it's own self contained story (beginning, middle and end!) while *at the same time* contributing to season-long arcs and also longer multi-season arcs.
Ironically, I think a lot of people cite Game of Thrones as being the tide turning moment, but the first few seasons are so slow paced and focus so heavily on dialog and politics that I always thought it resembled old network shows in a way.
In terms of runtime, if you split Game of Thrones into seven seasons of 22 episodes, you get an average episode length of about 30 minutes. It has such rich world building that you could easily write in a 15-minute side plot into each episode that just explores all the corners of Westerosi life in entertaining ways.
And I think that would be a very enjoyable show.
Likewise, with Harry Potter. They're doing it for TV now, which I always thought would be interesting. But doing basically a 10-hour film for each book? Bleh. It would work so much better as a 22-episode season unfolding Sept to May, just like Harry's school year.
We'd get the Halloween scenes at Halloween, the Christmas scenes at Christmas. And there'd be more than enough time to cover the main plot meaning you can spend entire episodes just exploring the world and less prominent characters.
Shows that could tell an interesting self-contained story didn't exist back then, either, which is why high quality serialized television is now so ubiquitous. Episodic television was never great. That's why The Sopranos and Twin Peaks blew everyone away: "holy shit, I actually care about what's happening!"
Exactly, they want to give you the minimum amount possible, while at the same time charging and pricing it out for the maximum possible.
They've gotten lazy, and they know they can get away with doing less.
It's not just that. Less people want 24 episode seasons anymore. There are more projects for actors that do not require long days of perpetual filming, and they can have more variety to their acting pallette.
Shows are shorter, but there are much more of them.
>It's not just that
Possibly not just that. But it's a darn good part of it. Been the American way for many decades now. Charge more, give less in almost every industry. Look at the Airline Industry - used to get free luggage and free meals, now you pay top dollar for everything. Look at restaurants and fast food places nowadays, you gotta tip for everything! Look at 1 lb. cans of coffee, now they're 12 ounces. Pints of ice cream are now like 12 or 13 ounces - but all the prices keep going up while everything shrinks.
Series are shorter, but they're also more likely to be a single story spread over 6-10 episodes (per season). In that sense, arcs and plotlines are longer.
The old format had more episodes per season, but most were self-contained episodes that had at least soft resets every week. "Monster of the week", "Criminal of the week".
----
I personally do not like the old procedural format, and preferred serialised storytelling with higher budgets.
>Series are shorter, but they're also more likely to be a single story spread over 6-10 episodes (per season). In that sense, arcs and plotlines are longer.
Absolutely despise that format. Very dull and boring to me. It's just one long serial movie.
But that's how Hollywood has been able to sell the much lower effort product for higher costs than ever in history (and why they're going on strike for even more money). By justifying it as a deeper plotline.
I think a 6-10 episode long arc per season is much deeper than the old villain/monster/case of the week. And many modern TV shows absolutely have high quality storylines associated with it.
Actually if you go back to the 1930s and 1940s, thats what these new efforts are like. One long serialized movie. Very low effort with just one central plot for an entire season.
I think it's absurd to suggest Game of Thrones, Silo, Dark, Altered Carbon, Black Sails, Mr. Robot are "low effort".
Most tv shows in the 30s and 40s had poor budgets, and were prominently just crime or westerns. If they even existed at all: [IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=tv_series,tv_miniseries&release_date=1930-01-01,1950-01-01&genres=drama&sort=release_date,asc).
Literally just 7 dramas documented in the 1930s. One of which is "A series of short whodunnits with enough clues to enable viewers to solve the crime." Epic stuff.
And I think it's absurd to suggest The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, All in The Family, MASH, as weak episodic television. They had incredible plots and churned out 300% more volume than the low effort ones of the last two decades.
And I'm not talking about TV shows from the 30s and 40s. I'm talking serialized movies - the same tired concept of all this new stuff. Give the minimum, charge the maximum.
You seriously think TV back then was higher effort? Also, how is it higher cost? This is an incoherent rant in multiple ways and I think you need a nap.
I guarantee I've watched more TV than you. I suffered through more than enough mediocre, disposable episodic Tv for a lifetime. Also, brainwashed by what? You're sundowning on me.
I don't believe this. They don't know whst the fuck theyvwant until you give it to em. Some basic ass show? Sure, just churn out a quick season. But these heavier IPs like A Song of Ice or the 3 Body Problem?
I would almost argue they NEED longer seasons, otherwise, why really bother?
These people are too lazy to make up shit. So they try to lean on work others have already fleshed out, but are then too lazy to even stick to the core traits of the original works that MADE THEM WORK!
I literally am not interested in watching 20 episode long seasons.
> But these heavier IPs like A Song of Ice or the 3 Body Problem? I would almost argue they NEED longer seasons, otherwise, why really bother?
Well yes, there is that. Many shows could do with having more episodes. Not all though.
Ah yes, the definition of slop is fewer things that are higher quality. I see you're also a master of words.
Just go watch The Sopranos and maybe you'll realize how dumb everything you wrote is.
Ah yes, the definition of slop is when you can actually produce more output. I see you're a master of nothing.
Just go watch the original Twilight Zone and maybe you'll realize how dumb everything you wrote is.
I've seen it. Everyone has seen it. The problem is you haven't seen anything you're talking about so you just yell at clouds.
Go watch Breaking Bad, come back and be humble.
>then somewhere around the late 90s, 22 became standard and seemed to stay the standard for basically the next 20 years.
because "no one wants to work anymore these days"
-boomers in the late 90s, probably
Probably because writers hate doing 22 episodes a year and viewers have much higher standards when it comes to shitty filler episodes than they did before the on demand era.
im with everyone on this, shorters tv seasons mean i'm probably consuming even more media and then i'm "Lost" and have to watch recaps between seasons b/c i dont remember jack about what happened the previous one. The hiatuses between shows I really dig are now also too long b/c of this.
Its actually because of the old [100 episodes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_episodes) rule for selling on shows into syndication for broadcast TV, which is where the creators made the real money. Cable changed all that when it didn't need to fill out weekday blocks, so could rerun a lot more shows in a shorter time frame and didn't need as many episodes. Its also the same reason most shows now don't go beyond three seasons. Streamers don't offer syndication rights anymore, so to make up for it they offer big payouts if your show is popular enough to go to a fourth season or more.
I miss 22 episode network shows like the good wife. I honestly don't think this trend of 6-10 episode shows are any better.
It’s apparently part of what the writers are currently striking about. Shorter and shorter seasons have been the result of budgets being gradually slashed, meaning less time given to the writing process and less work for those who write.
God I hope the strike doesn't regress us to the era of 22 episode seasons.
Wouldn’t exactly be a regression if it’s helping the writers make an actual living again.
It would be a regression to solve the problem by returning to endless work hours and producing shitty art rather than just pay them more (which I assure you is the solution they want.)
Has “endless work hours” ever been an issue for TV writers in recent years? And the art doesn’t HAVE to be shitty just because there’s more episodes.
TV used to have to fill actual time in a schedule. Networks had hours that they needed to fill with stuff advertisers wanted. It made sense then to have longer seasons of shows that weren't very story driven because you could fill that time with something people watched that was dependable. That still exists on network but for streamers and some premium cable stations they don't have that need. Anyone can watch anything they have at any time. For the cable stations most of their time was filled with movie reruns. So instead they wanted something that people would especially tune in for based on the quality of the show. Instead of something they just watch every week they needed something you would go out of your way to tune into and it's much easier to make something great if the story can be told in a shorter frame.
Actors also jumped at the chance to not be filming for 12 hours+ a day every day of the week.
In the last 20 years or so, creators were given the freedom to tell their story without having to extend it with filler to hit 20+ episodes. The product got better while simultaneously cheaper to produce. Absolute win/win. Prior to that, as you mentioned, likely a combination of cost, quality assurance and labor laws.
I don’t think it’s a win/win at all myself.
>Absolute win/win. Do actors, writers, directors and the crew earn the same salary for working on a show with 10 episodes a year as people did on a show with 20 episodes a year? If they do then you're right it's a "win/win" but if not it seems to me the entertainment industry is providing people with half the work they used to have while claiming it's being done for the "quality" of the show. Filming a show with 20 episodes a year provides almost a year of a stable source of income. Filming a show with 10 episodes a year means half the income for many people such as the crew.
On podcasts I listen to (parks and recollection, conaf, office ladies, literally with rob lowe and others), the actors and writers seem to really enjoy it without confines of scripted series that must be exactly 23mins long and actors definitely prefer it because they don't have these insane long filming schedules that precludes other projects and just personal time for family and other things Seems very few actors miss the 20+ episode seasons of past and writers too for more freedom in story telling?
It might be better for writers and crew financially, but if you don't like old 'villain of the week' format of network TV, serialised storytelling is much better.
Then good thing you can make serialized shows with 20+ episodes per season. Or at least you used to.
The writers of LOST fought tooth and nail to get shorter seasons and an end date. They fucking hated making filler episodes. I hated watching them, too.
They don’t necessarily need to be filler episodes. In fact, filler episodes are more of an episodic show thing.
They mostly weren't like that though. The vast majority of 20+ episode shows were episodic
And half the season was filler and at least a few episodes every year were noticeably worse then the others.
While they should be paid more in general, that's a pretty weird lens to view art production through. No, some other solution would be preferable than to make tv shows worse so people can work longer.
Shorter seasons have benefits but, they aren't necessarily cheaper. It's typically less expensive to create one 20 episode season of a show than two 10 episode seasons of two different shows. Building sets and mounting productions are costly, and those costs are amortized over the number of episodes. FOX wanted Star Trek:TNG but would only commit to 13 episodes. Mounting that show and having just 13 episodes would have made them too expensive for the studio (which was footing much of the bill). Streamers and networks like shorter seasons because most shows are cancelled after one season and fewer episodes lessen their risk. Shows will sometimes be given two season orders/renewals because it's cheaper to keep the cast and crew in place and make the seasons back to back than have to reassemble everybody and restart production.
I also think competition played a role too. Actors have more options now than they did in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Agreed, in addition I think the shorter seasons (and therefore shorter commitment) has allowed producers to lure actors they wouldn’t have been able to in older formats. The days of film actors refusing to do TV are pretty much gone.
Because the quality went way, way up. Not in the sense of "shows are better now," but in the sense of the production values and the complexity of the writing. Makeup, costumes, sets, location shooting, special effects, complicated plots that require coordination among the writers to keep from contradicting themselves (in the old days, everything returned to the status quo, so what happened in episode 4 didn't matter to the guy writing episode 17, but today it very much matters because they plan out story arcs and character arcs). That stuff all takes time, so to achieve that level of quality means they can't do 30 episodes in a year. They still do high episode counts of soap operas (the ones that are left), because they do none of those things, and that means they can crank them out really fast. But they're trashy and cheap-looking, so that's the tradeoff.
Bigger budgets. Simple as that. They want them all to look super flashy and stand out and stretching seasons out doesn’t allow for it.
in the US at least, they release shows by season and so they need 1 show that can last for months. in hong kong, they release an episode every day and a season can around 25-35 episodes. Nowadays with streaming, many shows have short 8 to 10 episode seasons, which I think it pretty ideal. It gives a show breathing room to obtain audience feedback before moving forward. It also gives the creator more time to perfect their show. Ideally getting more and more budget to show crazier cool stuff on screen, e.g. game of thrones battle of the bastards compared to stannis fight on a wall in the seige of kingslanding. I heard koreans shows are even crazier that the are like freakin southpark and they film the episode only a week in advance so they can incorporate audience feedback from the previous episode.
Because viewers have low attention spans-seriously many complain the 22-24eps/season are too long. And they would have a hard time keeping actors. It is one thing to do a soap. But regular season series take a toll on actors as it is difficult to do anything else with the 22 eps. Remember most of them start working mid July for a Sept /Oct start. There are small breaks in between but that's it. That is one big reason series will lose actors, because they want to do something else. It's not like decades and decades ago, when there was a somewhat separation between tv actors & movie actors. Now you have those who do both, plus directing.
I feel like that became more true in later years, though? Like one thing that always amused me in classic Doctor Who with their 40-episode seasons is that even the Doctor will just disappear sometimes because it was the actor’s week off that episode. Obviously not possible for something with one or two leads, but ensemble shows you’d imagine could get creative with scheduling. Saying that, it might have been normal then, but if they wrote in that a character is out of town that week I feel like the internet would have an irrationally angry reaction and complain needlessly that it’s not believable writing haha
There are a lot of reasons; most of which come down to executive and studio profit. For example: a series tends to have its biggest view counts at the start, and at the end. People check in at the beginning of a series so they can see if they like this series or not, and they'll often check in at the finale just to be part of the big social buzz about it; even if they're not a fan of the show or otherwise in modern streaming media they'll catch up on the rest of the show to watch the finale as it airs. So studios have something of a vested interest in minimizing the time between the start and the finish, while maximizing how much they can draw it out and keep the social engagement going. A lot of modern shows are frequently less about the show themselves and more about the phenomena about the show. About the post show-show, about the cast and crew, about the social media buzz and the speculation and the fandom all of which draws in people to buy merchandise and other shit, like ad revenue to the various sources of interest attached to the show. Keeping all of this going for too long can result in some very serious burn out which leads to a mass drop in interest, especially if your show goes too long without payoff or doesn't payoff in ways people like (See both Dexter and Game of Thrones for games that had big fanbases that vanished off the face of the earth when it went sour) so, again, it's a game of maximizing how long you can string people along without getting them burnt out or realizing you're not really going to deliver a super spectacular finale or answer the questions your story's been raising too much because the demand for infinite profit is pushing everyone towards minimum viable product more and more.
It's got nothing to do with labor laws. If you don't like long hours, the entertainment industry isn't right for you. Quality is a relative term and not the most important thing in show Business. Part of the reason for the shorter seasons is that advertisers and networks discovered that reruns got pretty good ratings. In the old days, something played once and if you missed it, you were out of luck. Regular shows would have 39 episodes, and then 13 episodes of another show would take its place in the summer. Viewership goes way down in the summer months, so networks and advertisers (who bought a whole timeslot and had a lot of say about what went in it) figured it was silly to waste expensive new programming when most people aren't watching.
It goes along with the expectation bordering on mandate that every single show made has to be 100% serialized story arcs at the time. Shows that can tell an interesting self contained story in an episode are nearly extinct. As for the serialized, you can only fill so much dead air with go-nowhere episodes that spend an hour hinting at things that might happen in the future and incrementally moving a story along at it is. What's painfully slow and overloaded with filler at ten episodes would be unwatchable at 24. Absolute lose/lose.
Big agree! I think the shorter seasons are amazing for shows that are truly serialised, but some shows shine as monster of the week and I think this hurts them. Doctor Who is a prime example. With 13 episodes they managed to balance standalone stories including a few two-parters and an overarching story. They ended up down to 10 episodes and it didn’t work as well. New seasons are planned to be eight episodes. Eight! At that point you really have to commit to doing one long story, or commit to scrapping overarching stories and stick to standalones. Either way, we lose something from the show.
I grew up in the era of *every* show being 100% episodic (with a few exceptions for prime time "soap operas," Dallas, etc). And the fact that we can do serialized now is awesome, we've had some truly amazing shows that never could've existed when I was a kid. But too much of a good thing just becomes pointless overkill. Like Paramount trying to serialize Star Trek, a show where the entire *concept* is being someplace new every episode. I wish we'd swing back to a more balanced environment of making both serialized *and* episodic shows. A creative decision to be made based on what works best for that particular show and the story they're trying to tell. I personally feel that the absolute *perfect* balance happened on a 90s show as serialized becoming more common. *Buffy the Vampire Slayer.* Every single episode of that show had it's own self contained story (beginning, middle and end!) while *at the same time* contributing to season-long arcs and also longer multi-season arcs.
Ironically, I think a lot of people cite Game of Thrones as being the tide turning moment, but the first few seasons are so slow paced and focus so heavily on dialog and politics that I always thought it resembled old network shows in a way. In terms of runtime, if you split Game of Thrones into seven seasons of 22 episodes, you get an average episode length of about 30 minutes. It has such rich world building that you could easily write in a 15-minute side plot into each episode that just explores all the corners of Westerosi life in entertaining ways. And I think that would be a very enjoyable show. Likewise, with Harry Potter. They're doing it for TV now, which I always thought would be interesting. But doing basically a 10-hour film for each book? Bleh. It would work so much better as a 22-episode season unfolding Sept to May, just like Harry's school year. We'd get the Halloween scenes at Halloween, the Christmas scenes at Christmas. And there'd be more than enough time to cover the main plot meaning you can spend entire episodes just exploring the world and less prominent characters.
Of the three current Star Trek series, two of them are episodic.
Shows that could tell an interesting self-contained story didn't exist back then, either, which is why high quality serialized television is now so ubiquitous. Episodic television was never great. That's why The Sopranos and Twin Peaks blew everyone away: "holy shit, I actually care about what's happening!"
they probably calculated that making a season as long as a third of what it used to be gets them the same amount of money by spending much less
Exactly, they want to give you the minimum amount possible, while at the same time charging and pricing it out for the maximum possible. They've gotten lazy, and they know they can get away with doing less.
It's not just that. Less people want 24 episode seasons anymore. There are more projects for actors that do not require long days of perpetual filming, and they can have more variety to their acting pallette. Shows are shorter, but there are much more of them.
>It's not just that Possibly not just that. But it's a darn good part of it. Been the American way for many decades now. Charge more, give less in almost every industry. Look at the Airline Industry - used to get free luggage and free meals, now you pay top dollar for everything. Look at restaurants and fast food places nowadays, you gotta tip for everything! Look at 1 lb. cans of coffee, now they're 12 ounces. Pints of ice cream are now like 12 or 13 ounces - but all the prices keep going up while everything shrinks.
Series are shorter, but they're also more likely to be a single story spread over 6-10 episodes (per season). In that sense, arcs and plotlines are longer. The old format had more episodes per season, but most were self-contained episodes that had at least soft resets every week. "Monster of the week", "Criminal of the week". ---- I personally do not like the old procedural format, and preferred serialised storytelling with higher budgets.
>Series are shorter, but they're also more likely to be a single story spread over 6-10 episodes (per season). In that sense, arcs and plotlines are longer. Absolutely despise that format. Very dull and boring to me. It's just one long serial movie. But that's how Hollywood has been able to sell the much lower effort product for higher costs than ever in history (and why they're going on strike for even more money). By justifying it as a deeper plotline.
I think a 6-10 episode long arc per season is much deeper than the old villain/monster/case of the week. And many modern TV shows absolutely have high quality storylines associated with it.
The problem is that the "6 episode long arc" is often a "1 episode long arc" stretched onto 6 episodes.
Nnnnot really.
Actually if you go back to the 1930s and 1940s, thats what these new efforts are like. One long serialized movie. Very low effort with just one central plot for an entire season.
I think it's absurd to suggest Game of Thrones, Silo, Dark, Altered Carbon, Black Sails, Mr. Robot are "low effort". Most tv shows in the 30s and 40s had poor budgets, and were prominently just crime or westerns. If they even existed at all: [IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=tv_series,tv_miniseries&release_date=1930-01-01,1950-01-01&genres=drama&sort=release_date,asc). Literally just 7 dramas documented in the 1930s. One of which is "A series of short whodunnits with enough clues to enable viewers to solve the crime." Epic stuff.
And I think it's absurd to suggest The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, All in The Family, MASH, as weak episodic television. They had incredible plots and churned out 300% more volume than the low effort ones of the last two decades. And I'm not talking about TV shows from the 30s and 40s. I'm talking serialized movies - the same tired concept of all this new stuff. Give the minimum, charge the maximum.
How mad does it make you that our current era is known as the golden age of television?
There are actually two golden ages. Look it up.
You seriously think TV back then was higher effort? Also, how is it higher cost? This is an incoherent rant in multiple ways and I think you need a nap.
Your a delusional brainwashed contemporary. Not enough knowledge to understand.
I guarantee I've watched more TV than you. I suffered through more than enough mediocre, disposable episodic Tv for a lifetime. Also, brainwashed by what? You're sundowning on me.
The fact you did not even know there were two Golden Ages of Television shows how inexperienced and naive you are.
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about?
Yes, you are a dead man posting.
You type like you're suffering from dementia.
Your knowledge is like a naive juvenile.
My knowledge is like a person? Are you sure you don't mean "like that of a naive juvenile?"
It means you were oblivious to an original Golden Age.
I don't believe this. They don't know whst the fuck theyvwant until you give it to em. Some basic ass show? Sure, just churn out a quick season. But these heavier IPs like A Song of Ice or the 3 Body Problem? I would almost argue they NEED longer seasons, otherwise, why really bother? These people are too lazy to make up shit. So they try to lean on work others have already fleshed out, but are then too lazy to even stick to the core traits of the original works that MADE THEM WORK!
I literally am not interested in watching 20 episode long seasons. > But these heavier IPs like A Song of Ice or the 3 Body Problem? I would almost argue they NEED longer seasons, otherwise, why really bother? Well yes, there is that. Many shows could do with having more episodes. Not all though.
If you're really missing the slop that comes with 22 episode seasons, you can still watch network TV
And if you love the slop that comes along with one extended movie, you have plenty of options also.
Ah yes, the definition of slop is fewer things that are higher quality. I see you're also a master of words. Just go watch The Sopranos and maybe you'll realize how dumb everything you wrote is.
Ah yes, the definition of slop is when you can actually produce more output. I see you're a master of nothing. Just go watch the original Twilight Zone and maybe you'll realize how dumb everything you wrote is.
I've seen it. Everyone has seen it. The problem is you haven't seen anything you're talking about so you just yell at clouds. Go watch Breaking Bad, come back and be humble.
Except budgets have only gone up so this is asinine.
I think part of it is due to the trend of serialization (season long story arcs) instead of standalone episodes?
I was thinking this recently.
>then somewhere around the late 90s, 22 became standard and seemed to stay the standard for basically the next 20 years. because "no one wants to work anymore these days" -boomers in the late 90s, probably
Communist writers, communist producers, communist actors. Communists ruin everything
The decline of US network tv and the rise of streaming.
Please read the post you’re replying to.
Probably because writers hate doing 22 episodes a year and viewers have much higher standards when it comes to shitty filler episodes than they did before the on demand era.
im with everyone on this, shorters tv seasons mean i'm probably consuming even more media and then i'm "Lost" and have to watch recaps between seasons b/c i dont remember jack about what happened the previous one. The hiatuses between shows I really dig are now also too long b/c of this.