The quoted "competing exec" is 100% wrong when he says Netflix is making a mistake ending shows after three seasons. Shows need to be pitched and run for three seasons max, period. Everyone has a life other than the show that's "hot" for the moment, from cast to writers to the source of money - the viewers. Shows that get dragged out inevitably suck.
That would be fine if the storylines were wrapped up at the end of season three but shows not only fail to do this, they often end on a cliffhanger and then the series gets cancelled. I don't know about other people, but I wait until a show has been on for years before bothering with checking them out. There are a few that I knew were continued as graphic novels, which I thought was a decent compromise but if I know there's an unresolved cliff hanger and a bunch of half finished storylines, I don't bother starting the show.
A three year series is fine but treat it like that in the third season before too many people's behaviors change and it starts to become difficult to get their attention to new series because they fear it ending suddenly without resolution.
I don't mean to sound like some "well akshuallyyy"ing Comic Book Guy figure, but you must realise it's not real life? If it's a Poirot-type mystery where the entire payoff lies in the resolution, then I totally understand, but for a regular TV show I can't see why you would enjoy the episodes any less simply because it might end without resolving all your questions. There's no real suspense - it's not real people, it's just a bunch of people performing in front of a camera. Being distressed about 'what happened to them?' seems, well, puzzling to me.
Almost all the shows i watch over and over and again are ones with 7+ seasons,
90's star trek (tng ds9 voy) all 7 seasons, MAS*H 12 seasons, Frasier 11 season, Scrubs 8 season (I skip season 9 and refuse to acknowledge its existance), Red Dwarf 8 season (+ more after the revival decades later), X-Files 11 seasons, How I Met Your Mother 9 seasons, Freinds 10 seasons, Stargate SG1 10 seasons, three seasons is to little to grow a fallowing and not enough for you to rewatch
Some other ones I watch again from time to time: Big Bang Theory, NYPD Blue, Supernatural, Cheers, ER, Law & Order, Blue Bloods, Waltons, Parenthood, Little House on the Prairie, Cosby Show, West Wing, MaGyver, Seinfeld, LoveJoy, Rumpole of the Bailey
A lot of series jump the shark of they get dragged out for long. Even worse, if it's a slow decline, it kills rewatchability. Some manage, but it goes wrong more often than not. And especially if your concept does not lend itself to a lot of seasons (like Chernobyl, for example), you should stop while it's still good.
Under that rule of thumb, The Wire and Babylon 5 would never have been made.
And from a more recent sample, The Expanse would not have been allowed to get to the end of the story arc.
All three have a few things in common. A strong cast of good-but-not-a-star actors.[ß] Writers who knew what they were doing. A story that they wanted to tell, and knew how long it would take. And above all: the integrity to end the series once the story was told. No stretching into infinity with useless rehashing or replaying of old hits. No resets. No desperate attempts to magically reinvent itself.
You pointed this out yourself: Shows that get dragged out inevitably suck.
Netflix paid $500 million for Seinfeld, a show that ended 25 years ago, that has constant reruns since, which best seasons are past the first three and that they themselves would have probably cancelled after the first one due to low viewership.
How about the show keeps going for as long as it’s good? Arbitrary time boxes on shows seems silly, some shows are great for 10+ seasons, would suck to lose that because we decided that wasn’t possible
The problem with American TV is that almost everything is unbounded. Some shows manage to keep things going. Others jump the shark.
It’s not that having 10 seasons is bad. But many shows tell the story they wanted to tell in much less time. At which point you should just stop.
Some formats are interesting though like American Horror Story. It’s more like an anthology. Different story each season. Some actors might return with different roles.
Dr Who is also interesting since the mechanism for “reboots” is built in to the character.
Or go the Disney route and expand the individual character stories like they are doing with Marvel and Star Wars.
I'm a fan of shows or movies being as long as they need to be. To Old To Die Young is a great example of a show that is bold and does this. Episodes range anywhere from 30 to 90+ minutes.
That said, for shows that have a continuous, overreaching storyline I'm highly suspect of the writers having no idea how the thing is gonna end. Sure, in some lucky cases it works out super well, but in other cases it gets us unsatisfying stuff that undermines the show like with Lost or Battlestar Galactica. Come up with the story arch and tell the story. Please don't keep stretching the thing out endlessly and end it when it's bad or the crew wants to move on. That's fine with shows that have disconnected episodes, but for modern shows or can ruin the whole thing and leaves me feel like I wasted a ton of time.
Other studios do "episode at a time" pilots, Netflix does "season at a time" pilots. Pretty much everyone misunderstands; and thinks a whole season implies more seasons.
But that's a problem. Watching a whole season makes you more invested in the show, so you're pissed off when it gets cancelled.
I also agree with OP that encouraging binge watching is not good. Netflix pumped out more content than any cable TV package I've ever had in the past, but by allowing binge-watching people binge and then get bored and say Netflix has no content.
If they spread out these shows it would be healthier for the viewers and would create a perception of more content.
> by allowing binge-watching people binge and then get bored and say Netflix has no content.
People don't say that Netflix has "no content" because they binge watch. People say that because Netflix does genuinely have dramatically less content than it did 8-10 years ago, because of the proliferation of competing streaming services.
If Netflix still had access to all the content it has hosted over the years, people wouldn't be making those complaints.
Yes and no, a lot of people say it has no contents because some stuff was pulled, but they still have a sh*load of content compared to what you got before, but people have already binged on all of it, so there's nothing new to look forward to most of the time.
Netflix also makes it super hard to find content and according to a recent Hollywood Reporter article the forces within Netflix that pushed for more middling, cheaper content over high quality content won. I think it shows. Really high quality content is imo more likely to appeal even to people who usually prefer a different genre. Netflix used to have that on the form of shows like House of Cards and even recently had the Queens Gambit which was apparently made by the person within Netflix who lost.
There are currently less than four thousand movies on netflix, and about 1.5 thousand of those are "netflix originals".
Maybe that sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. If you're browsing through random movies on IMDB and come across something interesting, the chance that Netflix will have it is vanishingly small.
> But that's a problem. Watching a whole season makes you more invested in the show, so you're pissed off when it gets cancelled.
This is because consumers have been conditioned since last century to assume this is how things should be. Netflix is trying to create a new [better] experience, and this is how they are going about it. Pilots of shows suck! Almost always the second episode the characters are more realistic, more developed. Sure, it hurts when the season gets pulled, but it was a much better experience during the run. Why say it's a problem? It's just "different" from what you personally expect.
People have limited time and investing in a storyline is not free.
> This is because consumers have been conditioned since last century to assume this is how things should be.
Or people aren't conditioned to care about what the idiotbox tells them at all. They are simply upset that something they like is being summarily made unavailable, like any other product.
If they release it piecemeal, I'll just wait longer to resubscribe to their services. If something is on HBO that I really want to watch, I won't subscribe to it until the season is either entirely wrapped up or at least will be within the month of the subscription.
But in that case you don't matter as a customer, because either way you only subscribe for binging one show.
I would bet that some people would pay for always getting the newest content, if only for being able to talk to their friends about the newest episode each week.
This is not a good comparison, because except in very few cases, the audience of a pilot is not the general public. In fact, the general public will never have the chance to see the pilot unless it's picked up, and in that case they'll still have to wait until the entire season is filmed.
By contrast, Netflix uses the viewership ratings from the first season to determine whether to renew for a second season.
I agree, milking shows usually ruins them. On the other hand, if they are great shows that last a long time you can gain a loyal audience. This seems to be how HBO has found so much success- Sopranos (never lost quality, even by the end), Curb, the Wire, etc. Although, GOT got milked out terribly. I think the hard part is just deciding which shows to drag on- and being based on a story that already has an ending helps guard against plot degradation.
GOT wasn't milked. It outran the unfinished source materials and then the director/producers D&D "phoned it in" because they started working on Star Wars.
And seasons are so short that even the bad seasons weren't a lot of TV.
It does seem like they had an outline for GRRM’s planned ending, but I doubt he was just going to have all the characters join forces and become a zombie fighting show.
Plot armour, a complete lack of consequences, CGI battles over dialogue, _really poor_ writing and ridiculous plots just to get characters in the right place at the right time.
The first four seasons are among the best TV ever. The final two among the worst.
Some kid-oriented shows seem to get by just fine, albeit their story lines don't necessarily connect. Sponge Bob, and Big City Greens are two of my favorite kid shows with a ton of episodes. Maybe I just like kid shows...
seasons are iffy measurement. episodes or hours is better. one season of star trek used to be 20+ episodes. no adays lots of shows are only 8, 10, 12 episodes.
tell the story you want to tell, with a satisfying ending. book and run the show for all of it.
no open ended shows that will run until it lives.lo h enough to suck. no shows canceled before their story is complete
It seems like strong shows can go up to about 7 seasons and remain good. Three does seem short for a very strong show.
Maybe personal bias, but it seems to hold up pretty well in my viewing history. Seinfeld definitely felt stretched at 9. Star Trek TNG's seventh season definitely felt like about time to wrap it up. Simpsons went kind of wonky around season 8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer seemed good for a 7 season run.
Not some immutable law, but really good shows ending after 5 seasons seems a bit disappointing as well, like Babylon 5. Writers run out of ideas and the original concept seems explored pretty thoroughly after going through 7 seasons.
Three is way too short. Seven seems like the sweet spot. Maybe everyone just gets bored and they don't do stuff as well after seven seasons, but shows really start to change after season 7.
I think the full release of everything prevents it from building up cultural relevance but I'd like to see something like 2 or 3 episode every two or three weeks rather then 1 at a time.
The same model is used for broadcast television in Britain - the standard British 'series' is 6-12 episodes. (Apart from soap opera, which cranks out massive amounts each year.)
Depends on the show (IASIP has been funny until recently, South Park is still good, et cetera), but I agree that shows shouldn't have the life wrung out of them
Sadly I think both are in their decline(and have been past few seasons) Both were the worst seasons of the series… South Park lost its edge where they poke fun at anything and everything without fear of backlash. The “tolkien” episode smelled of wokeness. The tegridy episodes are getting old, you can tell the two creators just don’t care as much about the show anymore as the IRL tegridy.
And yeah, go to weekly releases.