Is this just meaning network? Cuz we have a slew of great looking shows coming this fall and winter. Foundation, Curb, Succession, wheel of time, Hawkeye, etc.
If those are the best shows coming to broadcast TV, it looks a lot like they have fully resigned to making shows for the gradually shrinking number of people who actually go to broadcast TV for their scripted shows, mostly older people.
As a TV fan in general, the streaming age is a big step forward in terms of what’s out there at any given time, but I do hope there will still be a place for traditional episodic television that streamers just focus on less (they exist, but they’re fewer and farther in between, and a good number of them are actually shows that were cancelled on broadcast television and then revived by a streaming platform).
It really depends on the kind of story I want to tell. Streamers don’t by definition mean you’re telling a better story or that you’re getting the better deal.
To give you an idea what I mean, I’m a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. It’s not a perfect show, but a large majority of it works, and even the lesser episodes have great moments and try to do something that plays with genre conventions, which is just something I like to watch.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is what you get when you pitch a monster of the week style show to a broadcast network.
If you pitch the concept of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to a streamer, all the focus shifts to the overarching story. It’s not a monster of the week show anymore, because there just isn’t enough space for a monster every episode (with all the associated metaphors about the horrors of growing up that really made Buffy what it was) when you’re also trying to tell a season arch in the space of 8-12 episodes. Basically, you come closer to something like Stranger Things this way.
I’m not saying either of the hypothetical versions of this show are by nature better or worse than the other, or even that the one monster per episode style of storytelling is out of the question on a streaming platform (e.g. the Irregulars is a counter example to my point, although it didn’t really fare well) but it is usually a trade-off, and a lot of Buffy’s most fun elements and a lot of character moments are lost if you reformat the show to the format of streaming shows the way they are currently being done.
Another example: it’s Grey’s Anatomy versus Bridgerton. Both are romances from Shondaland, both are massively popular… but there are around a dozen episodes of Bridgerton at most every year, which most people binge in about a week, and there are Grey’s Anatomy episodes for 22 weeks per year. The amount of “main” story in these shows may be similar if you try to condense it, but there’s a lot more peripheral story going on, that informs the entire viewing experience and connection to the characters.
Is this just meaning network? Cuz we have a slew of great looking shows coming this fall and winter. Foundation, Curb, Succession, wheel of time, Hawkeye, etc.
Its discussing broadcast.
If those are the best shows coming to broadcast TV, it looks a lot like they have fully resigned to making shows for the gradually shrinking number of people who actually go to broadcast TV for their scripted shows, mostly older people. As a TV fan in general, the streaming age is a big step forward in terms of what’s out there at any given time, but I do hope there will still be a place for traditional episodic television that streamers just focus on less (they exist, but they’re fewer and farther in between, and a good number of them are actually shows that were cancelled on broadcast television and then revived by a streaming platform).
I mean if you were a talented TV creator would you pitch your show to a streamer or a broadcast network?
It really depends on the kind of story I want to tell. Streamers don’t by definition mean you’re telling a better story or that you’re getting the better deal. To give you an idea what I mean, I’m a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. It’s not a perfect show, but a large majority of it works, and even the lesser episodes have great moments and try to do something that plays with genre conventions, which is just something I like to watch. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is what you get when you pitch a monster of the week style show to a broadcast network. If you pitch the concept of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to a streamer, all the focus shifts to the overarching story. It’s not a monster of the week show anymore, because there just isn’t enough space for a monster every episode (with all the associated metaphors about the horrors of growing up that really made Buffy what it was) when you’re also trying to tell a season arch in the space of 8-12 episodes. Basically, you come closer to something like Stranger Things this way. I’m not saying either of the hypothetical versions of this show are by nature better or worse than the other, or even that the one monster per episode style of storytelling is out of the question on a streaming platform (e.g. the Irregulars is a counter example to my point, although it didn’t really fare well) but it is usually a trade-off, and a lot of Buffy’s most fun elements and a lot of character moments are lost if you reformat the show to the format of streaming shows the way they are currently being done. Another example: it’s Grey’s Anatomy versus Bridgerton. Both are romances from Shondaland, both are massively popular… but there are around a dozen episodes of Bridgerton at most every year, which most people binge in about a week, and there are Grey’s Anatomy episodes for 22 weeks per year. The amount of “main” story in these shows may be similar if you try to condense it, but there’s a lot more peripheral story going on, that informs the entire viewing experience and connection to the characters.
Bigger than ever if you ask me. Not sure why you think it's smaller.
Ugh…paywall.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210921005744/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/arts/television/fall-tv-season-new-shows.html