Have you noticed shows nowadays gone weaker?

Honestly, I think people forget how many things are mediocre in general. It's like SNL skits. It gets 20~ episodes a season. Like seven skits per episode. 140 total per year. And people remember like 10 as being pretty good, and forget the other 100 attempts.

No. Longer answer: you picked a weird set of shows as your benchmark. Did you watch any of the following? * The Pitt * Pluribus * Adolescence * Task * The Chair Company * The Studio * Deli Boys Or, going back a bit further: * Andor * Shogun * The Bear * The White Lotus * Beef * P**** Face * The Rehearsal * Severance It's absolutely not the case that "tv has gone weaker through the years." What are you even basing that on?

Maybe you are just looking at the wrong thing. Severance, Pluribus, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Invincible, are just some of the shows in the last couple years that I found great. Im sure there are more, are you sure you are watching tv?

Replace ‘tv’ with’Listnook‘ here and it sums up my response to this thread

I do think there are some specific ways in which a person could say that *some* or a lot of tv is different or worse (eg. personally I feel like the lack of "filler" episodes now means you don't get as attached to the characters/world, though that's subjective), but a blanket statement like "tv has gone [sic] weaker through the years" doesn't ring true to me. There was plenty of television with weak writing and recycled ideas ten years ago and twenty years ago and thirty years ago. We just don't remember it as much because a lot of shows that get picked up on streaming, got physical media releases, etc. were better than average, which is why they stood the test of time.

And gums gotten mintier!

I feel the exact opposite. TV has only been great for a while now. A lot more swings at something original. They aren’t always going to land but at least a little effort for something new. Not compared to movies that are remakes or just the next Marvel movie. Not a whole lot of creativity in that space anymore.

I'm going to tell you why, and everyone's going to downvote me for it. In 2020, they decided to virtue signal with a management decree of "all positions, all levels" equality stuff through DEI, with direct mandates to ignore experience, reputation, and work history to make this happen. If anyone wants to contest me on this point, please step into the Wayback Machine and go look up Amazon's OLD DEIA page (before they completely scrubbed it the week after the election). It says it in black and white, clear as crystal. If you still don't believe me, please go hop on IMDB and start looking up writing credits, directing credits, etc. Notice how in 2018 the average Marvel TV showrunner and writers had around 100-200 credits, and after 2020, they often have less than 4 credits (and then, mostly student films)? You can't argue with this. It becomes an argument, because people always want to jump on calling you racist for pointing this out. But the fact is, race has nothing to do with it - the mandate to overlook experience and talent to meet artificial quotas did. It also made people even *more* racist, because they equate the sudden diversifying with a quality plummet, which is the real tragedy of it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, introducing more diversity is a good thing, but doing it this way absolutely imploded so many companies it's staggering, and nobody dares say it because people cannot handle a nuanced discussion about the implementation of it.

Books, have you read books? I mean books are cool too, maybe try some books? TV is not in trouble because books. Please find a therapist and take a chance on books. Books are great.

I've enjoyed several shows over the past few years: The Pitt A Knight of Seven Kingdoms Task The Penguin The Righteous Gemstones finished strong Succession finished strong The Last of Us I'm really enjoying It: Welcome To Derry Alien: Earth The Lowdown The Beauty

I’m actually loving the new Kurt Russell show *The Madison*… but I’m only 3 episodes in, so I might be proving your point... 😅 That said, *The Pitt*, *Landman*, and *Best Medicine* have all felt pretty consistent to me so far Overall, though I kind of agree — it does feel like we’re in a quantity over quality era right now.

No. You only remember the good stuff from the past

TV writers themselves have been talking about this for a while. Streamers don't necessarily have an old school standing writing staff or writer's rooms the way old networks did, people just get an episode each to write and have at it. So stuff doesn't get organically punched up or polished for consistency the same way. Shorter seasons also mean there are fewer chances for junior writers to cut their teeth and build up the technical skill side of things under the supervision of senior ones.  Joss Whedon was something of a writing nepo baby, but that background and his time as a journeyman script doctor meant that he's a very strong technical writer in a way that's getting kind of rare now. Everybody remembers the quips and big drama moments, but Buffy eps and arcs also had pretty strong underlying structure bones and pacing too.  Writers with those kinds of chops - leaving his grossness aside - just aren't coming up anymore because the infrastructure that used to temper them is gone.  Stuff like Star Trek or the X Files served as incubators for clutches of creatives in a way that just isn't really available now, and the technical "craft" side of stuff suffers.

remember that the average show was written 1.5 years ago. It takes that long to get written, filmed and shown. So we are still in the times of meh.

TV writing in general is in the damn toilet and I'm honestly cringing at some of the examples people are bringing up to try and refute your point.

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I rewatched through Buffy & Angel last year and it’s SHOCKING how much better produced those shows are than most modern things I’ve tried to watch. The only *recent* good show I’ve seen is the animated adaptation of The Mighty Nein. Mind you, I don’t watch a ton of tv to begin with so YMMV

Marvel shows use the same boring formula as their movies do. They can't stay good because they can't keep the momentum going for the most part. Superhero shows in general tend to have.. horrible to mid writing. Even The Penguin which I seriously enjoyed kind of fell apart in the last couple episodes when it felt like it was getting repetitive and boring. TV in general struggles with consistently good writing. Some that have stood out to me (various genres) over the last decade are: DARK, Mr. Robot, Succession, Severence, The Sinner, The Righteous Gemstones, The White Lotus

yeah, same

Just finished "Paradise", based on a friends recommendation that it was good. Holy God, I have never seen such trash, it was my first time hate watching a show. Everything besides the premise was total and complete utter garbage. It bothers me that so many people love what I loathe.

I've been going back to shows that I watched when they aired on regular cable TV in the 90s and 00s, and I can't put my finger on why things changed other than cultural changes in the West overall. Not to get too deep, but I think that is probably most of the reason. People writing TV now just grew up in a different era. I feel like we definitely lost something important over the years. Particularly the last 20... it's reflected in our art and media.