Episode Count Rant

The bottom line is that hot actors, directors and producers don't want to do 20 episodes a year.

People who don’t watch TV like they used to complaining about how TV isn’t made like it used to be.

I'm on the fence with this one. I agree that it feels like more of a dearth when there are only 8-10 episodes and you have to wait an entire year to see how the cliffhanger from the finale resolves - especially when they release it all at once and you've binged it too fast. But I'm generally ok with it when I know the show has already been picked up for and is filming the next season and it should come out around the same time next year. I'm 100% with you on things like Stranger Things where there ends up being 2 years or more sometimes between seasons - that's just frustrating. But with the network shows you reference, it's often more quantity than quality - many are procedural and have little to no meta-arc to the seasons, and even if they do there are inevitably filler and bottle episodes that don't really add to the story. The streaming model gets rid of most of that in favor of a single, ongoing, coherent story.

So many of even the shows with "only" 10 episodes are still lacking in quality (like writing). To make twice of that in a shorter time would decrease that quality further, you shouldn't want that.

People forget how much filler were in those long seasons.

The problem is priorities. You watch Stargate SG-1 and get plenty of CGI. You watch Supernatural and the CGI is pretty decent, but used sparingly. CGI is not the sole issue here. The Mandalorian uses newer technology that lets them create entire backgrounds that play during filming. The CGI is on the front end rather than the back. It did consecutive years just fine on its first 2 seasons. Other shows don't use enough CGI or use it when it's unnecessary to justify the long production times. Meanwhile, you look at One Piece, where they literally build actual ships on water... that show up exactly one episode. Season 2 was when they finally dipped into the CGI hard and that didn't slow down production at all. Part of it is the price tag. Part of it is the style. Part of it is the writing, the production company, the studio. You watch NCIS or Grey's Anatomy for 20 years and don't notice that there's a lot of monologues, a lot of characters interacting, very little action. Criminal Minds has an ensemble cast that precisely take turns while talking, no interruptions or corrections, so dialogue is distributed more evenly. Smallville gave its lead actor the fewest lines every episode because he's in so many scenes so they could actually finish filming an episode every week. those 22 episode season shows only show huge CGI-fest wild-explosion every-guest-star-at-once episodes for major events maybe thrice a year. The Witcher had at least one grotesque monster fight per episode. I think Marvel gave the best summary when they started doing shows, calling them "6-hour movies with breaks". And sometimes it feels like that, because it's filled with so much unnecessary stuff that, yes, it could've just been a 2 hour movie. See the difference? Look at Monk, X-Files, Supernatural, The Expanse, Snowpiercer, Breaking Bad, Buffy. Those shows ran just fine with yearly releases (with probably a dud episode per season) and better writing than a lot of these shorter season shows can pull off. They didn't need movie-quality CGI or big spectacles every episode. They had characters that felt real, dialogue that felt natural, experiences that felt just a little less likely than real life. We can argue quality consistency another time, but they worked.

What a unique post!!!

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Network shows can do 20+ episodes a year with just a few months between seasons by mostly doing fillers and recycled plots. The Chicago shows did the couple trying to adopt a kid but have to fight the system in all three shows. In fact they did it more than once in Chicago Fire. If that's the kind of show you want there are still plenty of them out there.

K

>For context, I don’t really watch shows from these networks If you did, you’d see just how formulaic these shows can be. Yes, some formulas are good, but the majority are churning content for the sake of churning content. Even higher end, award winning shows end up with recycled plots or multiple episodes where only one of the multiple threads is doing something good. Listen, nobody is defending streamers and what they’re doing but I don’t know if comparing to network tv is realistic. The answer is somewhere in the middle.

So many people don't care if shit is good, just that there is a lot of it.