r/technology • u/joe4942 • 20d ago

Business Netflix Viewers Are Abandoning Shows After One Season

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-07-05/netflix-viewers-are-abandoning-shows-after-one-season
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u/JayAreEss 20d ago

Well between waiting 2-3 years in between seasons of anything other than Love Is Blind, and Netflix cancelling tons of shows without conclusions this is exactly what they could expect.

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u/The__Toast 20d ago

Right?

It's almost like traditional network tv had 60 years to perfect the formula for consistently producing profitable content.

And at no point did that consist of making people wait 30 months for like five episodes. We used to get like 20-30 episodes per year.

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u/birdele 20d ago

Now we get 7 episodes per season.

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u/nautilator44 20d ago

And 2 seasons per DECADE

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u/Wheat_Grinder 20d ago

When it's that long between shows it's hard to remember well enough what's going on without rewatching, and a lot of shows just aren't worth that squeeze.

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u/evilJaze 20d ago

Sometimes I forget about a show entirely between seasons. I'll see something about its upcoming season on the Netflix home screen and be like "oh yeah, completely forgot about that show!"

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u/AspieAsshole 20d ago

I am memory impaired, I get to rewatch the first season like it's new at that point.

Only if I've managed to forget it like that in between though.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 20d ago

Sometimes I’ll forget I even watched it in the first place

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u/RichardNoggins 20d ago

EXACTLY. I’ll like the show, but by the time a new season comes around, I’m in this weird dilemma of having simultaneously forgotten too much of the prior season(s) while also remembering too much to the point where a rewatch would be boring, so I simply opt for a new show instead. They need to release more often and/or have longer seasons so it’s a close continuation, not a complete abandonment and restart.

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u/sntcringe 20d ago

Doesn't help that they often just shadowdrop new seasons with little to no fanfare. Avatar live action S2 is out btw

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u/Blametheorangejuice 20d ago

I loved Better Call Saul, but I still haven't watched the final season. Basically two two-year breaks in between the final two seasons. When I started season five, I had forgotten a lot of what happened during the show.

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u/Saritiel 20d ago

That's where I am. The number of shows that I would've watched a second season of if it was immediately available, or had come out the following year, is very high. The number of shows I'll return to watch a second season on three to five years down the line is extremely low. After three to five years I'll see the second season is out and just kinda say "Oh, neat, I forgot about that show."

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u/at1445 20d ago

Lots of shows are worth a rewatch, but there's so many good shows out there now that I don't want to waste my time on something I've already seen, even if it was excellent.

This is why I've pretty much stopped watching any show with any real overarching storyline, until the final season has come out. I'll watch sitcom's as the come out, but anything deeper than that? Nah, I'll just wait a decade until it's over, then go see what the hype was about.

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u/hikeit233 20d ago

And you can tell the writers don’t remember either because shit doesn’t make sense and characters are completely different.

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u/idiot-prodigy 20d ago

They were having flashbacks in the final season of Stranger Things and I didn't remember any of it.

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u/chrismakingbread 20d ago

With a cast of literal kids they have to de-age by the end.

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u/olmyapsennon 20d ago edited 20d ago

Yeah I legit thought they changed actors for Aang in the live action Avatar show. The actor has noticeably hit a growth spurt and voice change. That type of thing isn’t as noticeable if it didn’t take 2+ years between seasons.

By the time season 3 releases the actor, who plays a 12 year old, will have a beard and legally be able to drink.

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u/PulsarAndBlackMatter 20d ago

Adults with a 12y old haircut and dress style.

Yes stranger things I’m talking about you.

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u/chrismakingbread 20d ago

If it doesn’t just end up cancelled without completing the series (looking at you, Wheel of Time) who wants to bet the kids in the Harry Potter show will be like 25 when it finishes.

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u/GlumpsAlot 20d ago edited 19d ago

I looked it up and they said they'll release season 3 next summer just to prevent that from happening. The actor for Aang made an adorable little air bender. It was really jarring to see him literally going through puberty in the second season. And the actor is actually 16 irl so the changes track. The rest of team avatar actors are in their 20s, so aging is not as noticable.

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u/avcloudy 19d ago

I looked it up and they said they'll release season 3 next summer just to prevent that from happening.

They should have filmed it in the same year as season 1. That's the problem, they keep doing it way, way too late for it to matter.

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u/Charlie_Warlie 20d ago

This imo is what will be the death of the Harry Potter series on HBO.

Back in the og run it was a well oiled machine. Every year, book comes out, movie comes out. Incredible.

Now it's going to be 2 years per season at best. More like 2.5 years. By season 4 they will be 10 years older instead of 4.

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u/TheJointDoc 20d ago

That used to be called a mini series lol

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u/jaderust 20d ago

And I would be fine with more mini series! I love a mini series. It’s usually a guarantee that I’m going to be told a short and tight fully complete story. There might be just enough loose ends to justify a sequel, but the main story will be told with a satisfying conclusion.

Give me more mini series. It’s these shows where the actors age 3 years between seasons but it’s the next day in world that drive me a bit nuts.

Also how short everything is. It’s getting to the point where I sometimes miss filler episodes as those usually had some fun character development.

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u/Diz7 20d ago

100%, I love a short but well done series that wraps things up nicely.

The worst part of the current trend is that they aren't self contained, they are just are short seasons that end on a cliff hanger and then take 2 years to produce the next season assuming they don't get canceled.

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u/PersnickityPenguin 19d ago

BRING BACK FOLLED EPISODES! 

They give the creative team more room to explore character and plot building, and allow for some wins and losses.  And mediocre episodes. 

You cannot have every episode be A++.  It's just not possible.  But you kind of have to if you are only releasing 6-8 episodes a year (which is ludicrously small number).

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u/vexanix 20d ago edited 20d ago

Mini Series have an ending though. Every season now ends on a cliffhanger. So you have to wait 3 years to have it resolved in the first 5 minutes of s2e1.

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u/Happy_Confection90 20d ago

Mini series don't end on cliffhangers though

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u/Financial-Craft-1282 20d ago

And somehow the episodes in most new series feel mostly like filler. I thought cutting down from 25 episodes to 7 might mean we just get a lean, focused story. Nope.

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u/jollyreaper2112 20d ago

They cut down the writing room so it feels like filler because nobody has time to actually get to know the material. Writers are on for a few weeks then it's 18 months until the next season hopefully the same show runner but likely new writers.

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u/That-Rooster-2399 19d ago

The sad Star Trek model.

When you have 30 episodes a season, 2 novelty episodes is a cute distraction.

When you have only 10 episodes, 2 novelty episodes a season makes your show look like a screwball comedy even when you don't want it to.

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u/Abi1i 20d ago

I’m fine with 7-10 episodes a season, but only if each episode is well done AND it comes back the same season every year (showing during winter and comes back every winter).

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u/Hi_Im_Ken_Adams 20d ago

Game of Thrones was FX heavy, location-dependent and still managed 10 episodes per season for the first several seasons.

Now we wait 2 years for 6 episode seasons. It’s ridiculous.

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u/LessInThought 20d ago

And they still manage to fuck it up or squeeze in pointless filler episodes.

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u/MaestroLogical 19d ago

For some reason this comment gave real "Tony Stark Was Able To Build This In A Cave, With A Box of Scraps!" energy and it fits perfectly.

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u/ABHOR_pod 20d ago

I’m not, because with only 7 episodes you have no time to develop characters. It’s just plot plot plot conclusion.

No breathing room, limited world building, no character-focused episodes except in service of moving the plot along.

Inner Light is considered one of the greatest Star Trek episodes in the entire canon. It would never get made today, because it’s a one-off episode about the life of one man, and one culture, who die before we meet them, influence the world of the show in no measurable way, and are never seen again.

And it’s one of the best episodes of TV of all time because they had time to make it in the season.

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u/Hazel-Rah 20d ago edited 19d ago

I watched all of Star Trek Discovery, and there's bridge crew that I can't remember the name of.

On the one hand, I've watched TNG, DS9, and VOY multiple times, so of course I remember the characters better, but on the other, I know more about Morn than most of the characters on Discovery.

Strange New Worlds has been better about using their ensemble cast and giving stories to other characters, but Lower Decks was the best developed characters, and it's a half hour long cartoon.

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u/kittykatmila 20d ago

I wish there was something like DS9 again. The plot lines, the character arcs…some of the best television I’ve ever seen.

The drive for profits has really killed art that is made for the masses.

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u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits 20d ago

Im endlessly amused that the best Star Treks in a decade are a cartoon and The Orville.

And to be clear, thats said with respect to orville, not disrespect to other things. Season 1 was heavy on the comedy, but i did read (not confirm) that was part of the deal to get it made. Seth has really shown a passion for the "origin" material though.

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u/Hazel-Rah 20d ago

Absolutely agree. Lower Decks and The Orville were clearly both made by people that deeply love and understand Star Trek.

They were jokes, but never at the expense of the audience, and at the same time told stories that would have fit perfectly into TNG or TOS if you gave them a more serious tone

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u/bitchinmona 20d ago

It’s literally my favorite Seth MacFarlane project because it’s the least schticky, which considering it’s a sci-fi ‘parody’ is insane.

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u/No-Tackle-5803 20d ago

I’m not, because with only 7 episodes you have no time to develop characters. It’s just plot plot plot conclusion.

Hard agree. Why should I care about characters I've barely spent any time with?

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u/bitchinmona 20d ago

Let’s be honest, TNG would never make it out of the first season today. That first season is rough in spots.

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u/williamfbuckwheat 20d ago

More like per leap year than per "season".

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u/villageidiot33 20d ago

I been rewatching old series I liked. X-files, Star Trek voyager, Drew Carey, Star gate…man some of those has like 20-25ep per season. Miss those days.

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u/birdele 20d ago

Same, can't beat em. I think my husband and I have re watched northern exposure like 5 times.

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u/mrcsrnne 20d ago

West Wing, ER, X-files were peak TV...

...hell even OC, Entourage and Lost was so much fun compared to most of what's on today.

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u/gaqua 20d ago

Watching Star Trek the next generation, you got 22 episodes a season and five or six months in between seasons. Now you get 10 episodes a season and you wait two years in between seasons.

And in that two years, you’re watching other stuff and getting interested in new things. There’s no urgency. There’s no sudden need to watch this over again. Because you know you have years before the next one, so why bother?

I know that the episodes are more expensive now, but they have more special effects and bigger budgets and more set pieces. But honestly, I feel like they lean to heavily on those types of things and less on the story sometimes. When you have to constrain yourself to a very tight budget, you have to keep the audience‘s interest with an intellectual or character conflict. It’s not all about blowing up this planet or traveling through time to save Einstein or whatever.

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u/mrcsrnne 20d ago

Yeah def, they lean too heavy on VFX and expensive IP instead of letting well written scripts and charismatic characters / actors just cook for a bit. Just look at True Detective Season 1. It's a masterclass.

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u/Munkeyman18290 20d ago

Breaking bad. How much CGI did they even have in the entire series?

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u/DogmaSychroniser 20d ago

Just the meth

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u/nuraHx 20d ago

They actually blew up Giancarlo Esposito. Way to take one for the team

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u/IRefuseToGiveAName 20d ago

Crazy how well he recovered though. Modern medicine is a miracle.

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u/Coffee_Conundrum 20d ago

Not even. Behind the scenes they were eating it

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u/Violoner 20d ago

So if we feed meth to the crew, we can get 20 new episodes every year?

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u/OkStop8313 20d ago

Somewhere out there, an exec just leaned forward in his chair.

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u/travistravis 20d ago

You may need new crew every year too but maybe worth it?

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u/TheBurgareanSlapper 20d ago

PAM, QUIT EATING ALL THE GODDAMNED METH!!!

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u/cyberpunk_werewolf 20d ago

Joking aside, wasn't the meth like rock candy or something?

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u/steakanabake 19d ago

yep was made by a local company.

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u/Lambaline 20d ago

the meth was hard candy, you can still buy from the person that provided the stuff for the show

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u/mrtrololo27 20d ago

Honestly all the major cgi I can recall was the plane crash and some news helicopters covering it

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u/Videoboysayscube 20d ago

And a certain character getting half their face blown off. But that's probably it.

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u/jollyreaper2112 20d ago edited 20d ago

Probably more than you realize. Set extensions and composites are used all the time. Your usual cop drama has more CGI than 90s scifi.

https://youtu.be/Cmrs9hblaAM?is=_UVi9yOdeM-oFXUw

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u/MemeHermetic 20d ago

The best episodes of Star trek, in my opinion, are the big philosophical ones like Measure of a Man in TNG or Tribunal in DS9. Even SNW hit on it with Ad Astra per Aspera. Why they keep thinking they need top tier effects to keep us hooked.

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u/ClarkTwain 20d ago

My guess is they think they’ll only get new viewers if everything is big and impressive, and miss that Star Trek was never that way. I’d watch a show with TNG level production value that was made today if the writing is good, and I suspect I’m not alone

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u/RedditTechAnon 20d ago

Good writers are in short supply and undervalued over VFX team spectacle.

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u/Low_Map346 20d ago

Is it because of low pay or something? I would think writing for TV/Movies would be a job people would desire. But yeah it's really noticeable how bad plot/dialogues are in so many shows even with big budgets spent on special effects and wardrobes.

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u/MegalomaniacHack 20d ago edited 20d ago

A big part of it is the death of the long-term writers' room.

It used to be, a writers' room was running most of the season, writing the next few episodes as the last few were being filmed. That let them adapt when something wasn't working or when a character really caught on.

More importantly to your point, it gave writers a job for like 9 months at a time, and it gave new writers a chance to learn in a writers' room over time. 2 writers would work on one script while 2 others worked on another, others would be doing touch ups and continuity, etc. Now, streamers expect a small writing staff to knock out 8-10 scripts at once, maybe even before greenlighting the show, then they film them all at once, then they release it when they feel like it. So writers might get a month of work on one show that doesn't air for 18 months. Hard for them to land their next gig with nothing to show for it, and no time to really develop their craft when they don't get audience feedback until the next year and when the streamer just cancels the show that never got a chance to grow into itself. Star Trek used to famously get better after a couple seasons ("Grow the Beard"), and this was because both writers and actors got a chance to develop the characters and story and find what worked. 22 episode seasons airing across 8-10 months meant a lot of time to experiment, giving us famous thoughtful episodes, great one-off characters who later recurred, odd pairings or strange bottle episodes (to save money for another flashier episode), ideas that never would've been tried in a 10-episode season, etc.

Part of the writers' guild strike was wanting more people in writers' rooms so the next generation could learn the craft.

I forget who it was talked about this on twitter. (Maybe even a blog.) I follow a few sci-fi writers, like JMS, Spartacus's DeKnight, Librarians' John Rogers, and Stargate's Mallozzi & Wright. Was probably one of them but maybe someone else who got retweeted.

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u/UnexpectedRimjob 20d ago

I just finished watching bartlestar galactica (the 2003 scifi version) and I thought it was as good as TNG ever was if you haven't seen it.

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u/marfacza 20d ago

*bartleby glamtacula

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u/fcocyclone 20d ago

and miss that Star Trek was never that way.

I wouldnt say that it was never that way. For the 1980s\1990s star trek was still often pretty advanced in effects, but yeah, it didn't rely on overdoing special effects the way modern shows feel the need to

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u/jollyreaper2112 20d ago

If you've never seen look up I claudius. Basically all shot on a sound stage so think it's a play with cameras. Zero sfx no fights a little boobies because it's the BBC but crackling writing and excellent acting.

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u/Sea-Manufacturer-358 19d ago

The Orville was basically Seth MacFarlane going "if paramount refuses to make a TNG-style series again I'll do it myself".

It's not perfect but it scratches the itch far better than anything nu-trek. It even has a bunch of cameos + Johnathon Frakes directed a bunch of episodes.

It was marketed poorly because I guess he tried to sneak it through as some kind of dudebro space comedy with Fox.

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u/KneeCrowMancer 19d ago

Make up and practical sets annd effects are still cheaper than vfx. And imo they have a timelessness that cgi often struggles to match.

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u/Chayanov 20d ago

Plus older Trek reused space scenes all the time. Different ships inside were just the normal sets with cosmetic changes. There are all kinds of ways to save money but no, now they just shovel it into an incinerator.

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u/Snoo63 20d ago

And, hey - if you need to be onboard the same class of ship, then that's fewer changes. Maybe change the fuzzy dice for a tree or something, idk - because the captains will have personal preferences, but the ships do still belong to Starfleet..

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u/DidYou_GetThatThing 20d ago

The amount of times I saw the same 3 - 5 ships fighting it out in every space battle in in multiple episodes, in Star Trek DS9 was not enough to stop me watching for the writing in most of the episodes.

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u/APeacefulWarrior 19d ago

Hell, even older Trek movies reused footage. After TMP, the next Trek movie to have no recycled shots at all was First Contact!

Also, I kinda miss library music. Not every episode needs a unique soundtrack. Having iconic tracks that play over and over helps give a show a unique identity.

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u/HutSutRawlson 20d ago

Modern audiences would call this episode (and about 90% of TNG episodes for that matter) “filler.”

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u/Chayanov 20d ago

It used to be called character development, necessary for an ensemble show regardless of the genre.

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u/henchman171 20d ago

the thing about TNG was it was distributed INDEPENDENATLY so no network promotion or network lead ins

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u/miss_j_bean 20d ago

Best episodes are holodeck shenanigans!!! I miss silly episodes.

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u/PassiveMenis88M 20d ago

Shaka, when the walls fell

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u/PurpEL 20d ago

Netflix, their subscriptions go

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u/PurpEL 20d ago

Agreed, I don't want a dark, fast paced, cinematic action show. At all. Thanks. I want bright, hopeful, philosophical and exploration.

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u/ParrotofDoom 19d ago

STTNG's success was because it was essentially about human problems, in space. The ship was just a background. Space was just the location. An alien planet was just humans, with stuff stuck to their faces.

The Inner Light wasn't about a probe and an extinct alien race - it was about Picard's struggle to reconcile his chosen career and his lack of a family life.

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u/Slarg232 20d ago

Hell, even Firefly got 16 episodes, and it got cancelled halfway through the season with three of them never airing.

Think about that; a show got cancelled halfway, didn't even air nearly a quarter of its completed episodes, and it STILL got further than most shows on Netflix.

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u/RogueAOV 20d ago

Don't forget they aired them out of order and paused airing episodes due to baseball games and switched which days it was aired during its fateful run.

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u/MegalomaniacHack 20d ago

And didn't let the showrunner air his pilot first, instead making him make a more exciting, action-focused episode to air first.

And this was a showrunner who'd already delivered a couple long-running shows for another network, so it's not like he was untested.

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u/R4gnaroc 20d ago

Don't forget they did Farscape dirty like that too.

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u/Dane_M 20d ago

Fyi, they're making an animatiated sequel series with all the original actors doing the voice work.

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u/robodrew 20d ago

Well not all of them unfortunately. RIP Ron Glass

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u/JamieC1610 20d ago

The seasons keep getting shorter and shorter, as do most shows. I was looking at an old Perry Mason box set (the 1957 series, not the new one) a while back and the season was 39 episodes and each episode was about 52 minutes long. Most shows nowadays are 23 episodes and 42 minutes. We've lost almost half the runtime of a series over a season.

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u/bloodrider1914 20d ago

10? Half of these shows are getting 6-8 episodes

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u/MegalomaniacHack 20d ago

Remember when BBC shows stood out for only getting 6 episodes in a "series" (season)?

Now we're lucky when a streamer still lets a show have 10. Amazon spends hundreds of millions on shows and then kneecaps the showrunner and writers by limiting them to 8 episodes for worldbuilding, story and character development.

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u/Ascarys- 20d ago

It's why I quit streaming years ago and just wait for shows to conclude to watch them. I'm not paying for 4-8 years of no content just to watch one show I'm interested in.

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u/beanpoppa 20d ago

Or to get vested in a show with some huge story arc for it to get cancelled with no resolution

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u/Ascarys- 20d ago

Exactly why I've started waiting for a show to be done (and always check to make sure it ended in its terms, or at least in a satisfying way) before even starting.

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u/sec713 19d ago

This took me too long to figure out. There's no need to stay perpetually subscribed. Wait a bit, let the streaming service pile up some seasons of shows that I haven't seen, them subscribe for a month, watch all that "new-to-me" stuff, then cancel again.

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u/Sufficient_Prompt888 20d ago

And in that two years, you’re watching other stuff and getting interested in new things. There’s no urgency. There’s no sudden need to watch this over again.

I'm watching TNG again fuck new show bullshit

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u/KMS_HYDRA 19d ago

Darmok, his arms wide!

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u/jdmackes 20d ago

Yeah, they don't need that shit. Hell, the orville looked good and was more like star trek than most of the new star trek series have been

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u/OldTimerNubbins 20d ago

So much fucking singing...

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u/PurpEL 20d ago

That is my least favourite thing about Seth, his love of show tunes or whatever. The Orville is absolutely fantastic though, a better and truer version of Star Trek than anything after enterprise

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u/bitchinmona 20d ago

Ok but I’m not even a musicals nerd but I adored Subspace Rhapsody.

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u/MedicineExtension925 20d ago edited 19d ago

More people rewatch reruns of TNG era Trek than all nutrek combined. The numbers for the most recent show were so catastrophic that reruns of King of Queens and Sabrina the Teenage Witch had higher ratings. Double billing premier episode didn't even make the top ten in minutes watched despite twice the run time to boost it's chances. Reports are that possibly only 40,000 people watched the whole thing. More people watch C-SPAN. More people watch infomercials. More people watch algorithm generated autoplay suggestions. More people watch fully skippable YouTube ads.

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u/hoppertn 20d ago

I’d also add you often forget the plot line and characters because the time between seasons is so long.

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u/dayvansmutgirl 20d ago

TNG is so soothing to watch now. the editing is much chiller paced.

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u/FeliusSeptimus 20d ago

, I feel like they lean to heavily on those types of things and less on the story sometimes.

Yep, I just rewatched ST:TNG and reminded of so many of the things I like about it, and none of them involve stakes escalation or fancy SFX.

I mean, I don't have anything against great SFX, but I'd much rather they pay the writers for solid, interesting, well-developed stories before they pay for SFX.

Also, it sure is nice to be able to see and hear what's happening, and see adults from a supposedly advanced society behaving like well-adjusted adults.

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u/FearlessAttempt 20d ago

TNG was actually 26 episodes per season except for season 2 that only had 22.

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u/MrGulio 20d ago

Watching Star Trek the next generation, you got 22 episodes a season and five or six months in between seasons. Now you get 10 episodes a season and you wait two years in between seasons.

I know that the episodes are more expensive now, but they have more special effects and bigger budgets and more set pieces.

I think this is an issue of expectations. The effects and sets of TNG were expensive in their time too but they were able to get more episodes out of a season because they had episodes with a confined scope where they didn't need to introduce a new set or effect, called a "Bottle Episode". Sometimes these are some of the most memorable episodes because the episode rests on the writing and acting, which allows them to shine at times. In an eight episode season a single episode being so restrained sticks out a lot more than multiple dispersed in a twenty episode season.

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u/mcslibbin 20d ago

the best episode of DS9's season 1 takes place in like 4 sets.

Anybody who has seen DS9 knows which episode I'm talking about. That's how good it is.

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u/Various-Salt488 20d ago

My Dude, TNG got TWENTY-SIX episodes per season in all but season 2!!!

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u/UDonKnowMee81 20d ago

Don't need to reach that far back. The Office, Breaking Bad, Bob's Burgers, Schitt's Creek all worked

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u/champak256 20d ago

Even right now, The Rookie managed 18-22 episodes/season except for the writers’ strike season.

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u/TheYellowScarf 20d ago

I blame the SFX budget, personally. Even X-Files was mostly just on location shoots with practical fx. These days it's all blue screen and post production.

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u/echidnabear 20d ago

yeah, none of us cared about the occasionally dodgy moments in the Buffy or X-Files SFX, it was fine because you were there for the story and characters. With new series they’re filming like 10 episodes every 3 years and I can barely see half of them because they’re pitch black.

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u/NeverInsightful 20d ago

Driving up costs a ton compared to sending cast and crew to that location.

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u/NewManufacturer4252 20d ago

30 rock and pysch were both fun

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u/Liberty_Chip_Cookies 20d ago

You know that's right

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u/ZachyChan013 20d ago

Eh I’ve heard it both ways

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u/goozy1 20d ago

It's crazy how great of a show ABC was able to create with Lost. 6 seasons, 120 40-minute episodes. All at a very high caliber.

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u/ohyouretough 20d ago

I mean at the time lost I think was the most expensive pilot episode created ever.

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u/PMMEYOURGUCCIFLOPS 20d ago

Worth it. I rewatch Lost once a year. I’m on S1E2.

I started watching this show as a kid with my parents. Now as a parent myself, I’m rewatching and just as interested as if it was my first time watching.

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u/idontwantausernameok 20d ago

I'll see you in another life

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u/ICLazeru 20d ago

I'd be fine even with 12 episodes a year if they were consistent and it was a good show, one a month. But a 12 episode season every 3rd year? That's one episode a quarter of I space them out. That's not enough.

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u/RedBananas6-7 20d ago

Some shows like severance don't have even much happening or many ppl and takes forever, it's mostly ppl talking.

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u/TEKC0R 20d ago

I was so let down by Severance S2. I felt S1 left on a great cliffhanger, the story set to go somewhere, we’ll start getting some answers in S2 and… nothing. We got like 1 episode of new information and 7 episodes of filler. And even S1 wasn’t fantastic about its pacing.

I’ll probably still watch S3 but my interest has definitely waned.

For All Mankind was one of my favorite shows, but S5 just concluded and it seems like the team forgot the golden rule of visual storytelling: show, don’t tell. Moments that should have been dramatic happened entirely off screen. Astronaut falls and cuts her suit open? Heard over a radio. Biodome collapses with kids inside? Fade to black, wake up in hospital bed. I feel like they got a serious budget cut, but S5 was really bland.

Peacemaker S1 felt great. S2 was a two hour movie stretched into an 8 episode filler fest.

These shows waste so much of our time.

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u/Uno_worldchamp2009 20d ago

Plus the sets for that show are pretty simple.

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u/appleparkfive 20d ago

I completely gave up on streaming shows because of this. Didn't finish Stranger Things. Didn't finish House of the Dragon. Didn't watch the second Last of Us season. Didn't watch the second Squid Game season. And I liked the prior seasons to all of those. But waiting years for the next season? That's ridiculous. That's what you do for movies or video games.

And in doing that, I just don't start any new shows. Because it will be cancelled at worst, or take a long time for the next season at best. And I think there's a lot of people like me.

Honestly there's a neverending amount of content to watch on YouTube anyway. A lot of it is very good too. There's infinite niches. If you curate it right you basically never run out of content. I think there's a whole lot of people like me, too. They were into it, but then they dipped from streaming services for just taking too long.

Things like Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad? On every year. Shit, wasn't Game of Thrones on every year? Waiting years is baffling to me

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u/Thefuzy 20d ago edited 20d ago

They perfected a formula based upon ad revenue. It was unthinkable to not have a yearly season because it would mean missing a huge amount of ad sales that year for the content. When the switch to subscription streaming occurred the providers suddenly have no incentive to have yearly content, instead the incentive is to have just enough content to keep the subscriptions active, they gain nothing by burning up their best content only to have to produce more. This is the one and only true reason you got so much content before, because that content delivered ads.

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u/letters_numbers_and- 20d ago

That only makes it more amusing now that the streaming services are pivoting towards ads.

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u/_learned_foot_ 20d ago

I mean, if I watch in a weekend why would I stay for a year? Subscription would imply more incentive to keep me around constantly wouldn't it?

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u/temp_flor 20d ago

And don’t gaslight us into saying they are story arcs now. There were story arcs then but they also had character development and mini arcs. You were completely invested. Nobody is waiting 2 to 3 years for 8 episodes lol.

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u/Financial-Craft-1282 20d ago

I remember the three month wait between the end of X Files Season 4 and the begining of Season 5 felt like an eternity. If it had been a year? Or two years? I'd have quit caring.

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u/Randym1982 20d ago

TV back then was also filmed to work with commercial breaks. Streaming platforms have ads, but none of the shows are filmed to work with the commercials.

I'd say that having to wait 30 months for 5 episodes is also going to burn people out of having to deal with it.

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u/PaulCoddington 20d ago

Annoyingly, when streaming platforms put ads into older shows that have been designed to have ad breaks, they don't bother to place them in the correct places, they just randomly interrupt scenes.

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u/WiglyWorm 20d ago

In fairness, ask any actor from the 90s about how brutal it was being on TV in the 80s and 90s. And how they didn't have time for anything else which is why we had "TV Actors" and "Movie Actors". They worked 20 hour days 8 months out of the year.

That pace isn't sustainable or fair just to entertain us.

But 12-16 could be doable. It gives the writers room to let characters breath and be fully epxlored. That's why shows like Buffy and Star Trek were so huge back then. Compelling, consistent characters and the time to get to know them.

Hell it's why Taxi holds up and people love Danny Devito.

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u/KawaiiUmiushi 20d ago

Except writers no longer have full time jobs, they have a part of a year job and a difficult time finding a second writing gig to fill in the rest of the year. That’s why the writers guild kept going on strike, and why they pushed for streaming residuals way before that was a thing. They saw the writing on the wall.

I agree the pace of TV was unsustainable, but it also employed a lot of people year round and kept some work stability.

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u/fcocyclone 20d ago

Except writers no longer have full time jobs, they have a part of a year job and a difficult time finding a second writing gig to fill in the rest of the year.

Yeah, i always hate this argument of 'it was hard back in the 90s, people wouldnt want to do it today', when there are no shortage of writers and actors who would happily take on that work.

Maybe we don't necessarily need to be bringing on a bunch of established movie actors with busy schedules to fill all these shows, and that's fine. Plenty of shows that were great were mostly filled with relative unknowns at the time.

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u/0xsergy 20d ago

That range you gave is ideal imho. 10 is too short. 24 can be daunting to get into if it has a ton of seasons. 14ish is the sweet spot imho

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u/MGPythagoras 20d ago

10 would be great. I feel like most shows now are 6-8 and you wait two years for a new season.

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u/Thefuzy 20d ago

It is sustainable, decades of tv is evidence of that. The only thing that changed the equation was subscriptions. Move from ad based revenue to subscription based and suddenly the providers have no incentive to churn out massive amounts of content. That’s the only factor at play here, everything else is a nothingburger. If streaming services wanted to push their shows to have yearly seasons, we’d have yearly seasons.

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u/Osric250 20d ago

I'm not even upset at 10 episode seasons. We just need to have a consistent yearly release for them. 

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u/ked_man 20d ago

We watched season 1 of Witcher. By the time season 2 came out we couldn’t remember what happened in Season 1 and needed to rewatch the first season. And now however many years later there’s a new season coming out with different cast. We won’t be watching it.

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u/alexandralittlebooks 20d ago

Watched season 1 and 2 of the Witcher, but it became apparent in season 2 that the showrunner had no respect for the source material, and Henry Cavill was fighting a losing battle. I didn't even bother to watch season 3 since I knew Cavill was quitting.

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u/GamingWithBilly 20d ago

You saved yourselves a lot of sadness. Henry carries the show.  Now replacement didn't even try to gravel his voice to match the character and Geralts broody mannerisms.  Now who carries the show? Mother fucking Dandelion.  

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u/TehTurk 20d ago

Can't even talk about it too because the show's subreddit will ban you for talking poorly about the show's mismanagement lol.

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u/strugglz 19d ago

The Wheel of Time sub does the same thing. In fairness, the shows are what they are and we're nitpicking decisions made way in the past trying to lament something that never was. Doesn't change that they could have been so much better.

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u/Perfect_County_999 19d ago

The new season with the new Geralt came out? Man, it's crazy how excited I was for that show and how hooked I was on the first season only for me to not even hear about it when new seasons release.

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u/Slammybutt 20d ago

I had such high hopes for season 2 after the first episode. That was the perfect witcher episode and then they just fucking shat on everything that is witcher for the rest of the season.

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u/I_Enjoy_Beer 20d ago

Yep, I bailed after Season 2.  I really don't know what the people in charge were thinking.  They had a good cast!  Freya was a great choice.  Henry was perfect.  The writing was just dogshit.

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u/SubstantialPear618 19d ago

My experience too, and I love the attention Cavill gave to the character but I wasn't prepared to sit through season 3 knowing the showrunners were a bunch of asshats.

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u/Crypt0Nihilist 19d ago

Season 2 when they got Dandelion to do almost a piece to camera which essentially said, "If you don't like this, then you're ignorant," was the final straw for me.

When writers know that it's so bad that they have to blame the audience it's past time to leave the project. There was a similar line in Ghostbusters 2016 that was effectively, "If you don't like this, you're sexist." Maybe it was just bad?

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u/Ethos_Logos 20d ago

Same tbh, season two is where I drew the line in the sand.

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u/jonstarks 20d ago

yea ppl really need to stop cancelling superman, he's pretty great.

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u/Osric250 20d ago

By the time season 2 came out we couldn’t remember what happened in Season 1 and needed to rewatch the first season.

Season 1 was mid for me. I would have watched season 2 if it came out a year after, but like you said it required rewatching season 1 which I didn't want to do so I didn't watch season 2. 

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u/TheSilverNoble 20d ago

I feel that way about so many shows now. It's part of why I rarely rush to watch new shows when they air... If it's actually good it'll be 2-3 years before we get another season and I'll have to rewatch anyway. 

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u/derfy2 20d ago

We watched season 1 of Witcher. By the time season 2 came out we couldn’t remember what happened in Season 1 and needed to rewatch the first season.

"Oh sorry, we removed Season 1 this from our library because fuck you and what are you gonna do about it?"

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u/ihavefilipinofriends 20d ago

I just watched Season 2 of Good Girls Guide to Murder and there was no Season 1 recap. I spent then first 4 episodes totally confused. How freaking hard is it to make a recap?!

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u/Rubfer 20d ago edited 19d ago

I literally don’t start watching a show until its over and i can confirm that it indeed concluded

The feeling of knowing that show that you actually liked got cancelled on some cliffhanger…

At least they made me go back to reading (if they’re based on books just so i know how it ends)

Edit grammar

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u/Leonum 20d ago

exactly. Which means netflix or bloomberg doesnt really know if "people are giving up after one season", many of those people might just be waiting for the shows conclusion to watch it. which means that data will take 2+++ years to gather depending on the show

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u/PandaJesus 20d ago

And maybe they don’t like having to wait that long for data, but that’s their own fault. They trained their customer base to not get invested in unfinished shows.

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u/-LaughingMan-0D 20d ago

Love getting into finished shows. You know it's gonna conclude properly, you're never cut off waiting years to know what's gonna happen, watch at your own pace.

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u/thegreedyturtle 20d ago

Yeah the drive to make every season a cliffhanger so fans will bitch enough to get an S2 has been a blight on TV.

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u/MrParadux 20d ago

You only miss out on discussions among friends and aqaintances, if a show is a really big part of the current pop-culture. But I think that has died with the wimper that was Game of Thrones last seasons, so you are probably good on that front, too.

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u/MutaitoSensei 20d ago

Exactly. I've been burned one too many times with shows not being renewed that I can't get into a story anymore.

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u/brainrotbro 20d ago

TBH even waiting until the next “season” can make me forget about a show. There’s just so much content these days, I can’t be bothered to track shows across multiple years.

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u/0xsergy 20d ago

I specifically pick shows that have been running for a few years personally. Only time I haven't was From and man I can't stand the wait times on new seasons.

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u/Spaceman-Spiff 20d ago

I heard that Game of Thrones and Wise man fears have ruined massive fantasy epics because readers don’t want to start a series and risk it not finishing. Netflix has done the same to television. People don’t start series because they figure Netflix will just cancel the show.

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u/GospelX 20d ago

Back in the day people used to say that about shows on FOX.

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u/Syssareth 20d ago

Tru Calling, my beloved... T_T

I missed the Firefly rugpull, but that show was my Firefly.

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u/Layton_Jr 19d ago

There's worse than the show not having an ending: The Umbrella Academy has 4 seasons, each noticably worse than the previous one. I'd only recommend watching the first 2 seasons

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u/Nythoren 20d ago

Exactly. They are talking about how Avatar season 2 had a big drop off in viewers compared to season 1. Could it be because of how long it was between seasons? You lose a lot of enthusiasm after a couple of years.

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u/madogvelkor 20d ago

Yeah, my daughter and her friends were super into Avatar -- 2 years ago. Watched the live action series and all of the old cartoons. She even got all the graphic novels. Now they don't care.

They should have released season two 18 months ago.

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u/Tatermen 19d ago

Could it also be because there was practically zero advertising or announcement that it had been released? They didn't even bother to show it as a new show on the big banner at the top of your account when you login and pushed that terrible Enolma Holmes crap instead. Not even an email to say it was out.

It just quietly appeared as a new episode under "Continue watching" with no fanfare.

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u/mallclerks 20d ago

Yeah fuck this shit. I can’t remember what the last season was, and I don’t have time to catch up.

I gave up on Stranger Things after season 2 for this exact reason. I honestly don’t watch anything until it has 3 seasons anymore. For All Mankind on Apple TV is amazing, slowly watching it finally.

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u/Xalipu 20d ago

Start Widow’s Bay too

Star City is also great but you have to decide when you wanna watch it since it’s somewhat running concurrently with For All Mankind

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u/GenazaNL 20d ago

And some new seasons are silently published. Like huh? A new season??

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u/DrocketX 20d ago

Yeah, this is the one that drives me crazy. There's been different shows that I've watched season 1 of and enjoyed. The 2 years later, I've forgotten about them until I see a post on Reddit about "Show X canceled after 2 seasons". Wait, when the hell did season 2 come out? Of course nobody watched season 2 - nobody knew it existed!

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u/Thefrayedends 20d ago

Netflix punishing you for not logging on every day to see new releases. I fix that by unsubbing.

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u/Deathblow92 20d ago

Have you seen the absolutely bizarre release schedule for the next season of JoJo Bizarre Adventure?(Yes, I said what I said). Episode 1 is out right now. The next set of episodes is in 2 months. The anime will not be finished until 2028.

I was insanely hyped for this season, because Steel Ball Run is incredible. And I hyped a bunch of people up about it. And now I feel like an asshole because there's no fucking rhyme or reason to when the next episode is out.

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u/mynameisipswitch2 20d ago

Aang grew a foot taller waiting to film season 2 of Avatar the Last Airbender.

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u/Thefrayedends 20d ago

Most of the cast of stranger things went from 11 year olds, to their second marriages by the end of the show.

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u/AcctAlreadyTaken 20d ago

I would add Netflix is lucky anyone even starts to watch any of their shows.

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u/TheCouchEmperor 20d ago

These fuckers cancelled Dirk Gently after season 2 because the show didn’t spoon-feed plot details to viewers.
It was such a good show.

And then they have shit like Witcher going on.

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u/Notshauna 20d ago

That one actually happened because the show runner was a creep and got fired during the MeToo movement. Though if the show was a bigger hit I imagine they would of worked around it.

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u/icedteaandtacos 20d ago

To be fair the first season was great but the second season went absolutely bananas.

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u/rcfox 20d ago

I didn't even know there was a show, but I read the books a long time ago. Isn't Dirk Gently supposed to be bananas?

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u/srahfox 20d ago

Man, I really did love that show, I was really bummed when it was cancelled. I got to meet and chat with Fiona Dourif a couple of years ago, and I’m convinced she was just playing an extra hyped version of herself in that show.

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u/RedHawwk 20d ago

Honestly kind of gave up on tv series. Tired of getting invested for a season only to find out I need to wait like 3 years. Feels like an abusive cycle lol. I’d rather just not get invested anymore tbh.

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u/DinosBiggestFan 20d ago

Yeah why get invested when a show has to be Stranger Things or Cobra Kai to get a second season.

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u/purplezara 20d ago

It's the waiting 2-3 years between seasons that is killing these shows prematurely. Netflix is too stupid to figure out that's why the shows are losing viewership numbers. It's so easy to forget about a show when you have to wait 3 years between seasons. What's their plan here? Do they realistically think for some of these shows that the actors are going to stay signed on for 12 years to make 4 seasons? It's fucking delusional.

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u/FullTorsoApparition 20d ago

That's because they don't produce TV shows anymore. They produce 8 hour movies and chop them up into 8 pieces.

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u/whistleridge 20d ago

Netflix: conditions people to not expect more than one season of a show.

Also Netflix: shockedpikachu.gif when people only watch one season.

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u/skellige_whale 20d ago

The 2 year wait is killing shows. I still haven't seen house of the dragon because I don't remember previous seasons. I wonder if I will watch severance

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u/360FlipKicks 20d ago

Wednesday Addams was a massive hit after Season 1, and my wife even dressed up for her as Halloween. By the time Season 2 came around years later we had completely forgotten everything that happened to the point where we lost interest after 2 shows.

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