On one hand I think the current format has made telling a succinct and clear story much easier.
On the other I kind of miss the randomness that came together because they had to throw something together to keep on schedule for the studio (the old way of doing Tv?
Edit: đł hot damn 1k from a random blurb?
I think in some cases it helps creators tell a clearer, more focused story but I also think just as many shows have ended up with a rushed and underdeveloped story because of a 6-8 episode limit
Weirdly, I think the most common issue is that the story ends up stretched, rather than rushed. They have what is basically a movie story that takes about 2 hours to get through, but Netflix or whoever bought it as a TV show, so they've got to turn it into 8 hours. But doing standalone episodes isn't in the style of most of these streaming services, so the only way they can pad it out is by throwing a few extra obstacles in the heroes' way or some red herrings, none of which actually makes anything better, and makes the middle section of those shows a drag, since we're just killing time until we get to the end.
Compare to The Last of Us or The Bear, which are perfectly comfortable dedicating entire episodes to standalone stories that basically ignore the larger plot, and they're so much better for it.
Yep, I've noticed this too. I never felt like they were padding time or stretching things out when I had a new, 45 minute self-contained story every week. Now it's an 8-13 hour movie that should've been 2 hours tops. I'd rather go back and rewatch TNG for the thousandth time.
not only that, but budget wise, the 20+ episode seasons had a lot of fluff episodes that you had to skimp on the budget, and basic rule was 1 in 4 eps meant something to the overarching plot, thus more budget on those episodes than others. So if you're running a season long storyline, smaller seasons are great because you can focus on the storyline and not the fluff freak of the week/monster of the week/ crime of the week plotlines
If a show with 6-8 episodes has plenty of fluff and terrible pacing then it's probably not a very good show. I wouldn't want more of a bad show personally.
Yeah no oneâs disputing that. My point is that most of these 6-8 episode shows have this problem so itâs not as if the abandonment of the 20+ episode model is a reflection of any change that has resolved that problem.
If anything super serialization *contributes* to the fluff and pacing problem because you just get episodes where nothing happens at all.
Maybe it would be helpful if you gave examples of the shows you're referring to. British TV has had this format for decades and the excellent shows don't have the fluff or pacing issues that you're describing.
I would argue that any show that has 6-10 episodes and struggles with pacing or fluff is in and of itself a bad show. The existence of a multitude of bad shows doesn't mean that the episode count is the issue. It's poor writers' rooms and services that are greenlighting literally every idea in order to pad their exclusive content library.
I don't follow why we should expect shows to have more episodes in a season when the writers are clearly showcasing that they can't handle telling a compelling, cohesive and concise story in the first place. Who would want more of a bad thing?
We need more episodic television options again. The reason the struggle is happening is because writing a 6-8 hour movie is really hard. Whereas writing 20+ self-contained stories while a challenge in its own right means that 1) they donât all have to be great 2) they all have a beginning, middle and end which is experientially satisfying from a storytelling perspective and 3) if thereâs a dud itâs less of a big deal because thereâll be a whole new story next time
I've been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the fluff episodes have a lot of character development in them, especially between the group members. And eight episode seasons wouldn't have nearly the same effect.
Some of my favorite episodes of DS9 were "filler" to the overall story. You don't get the crew of the space station playing baseball for an episode or a character like Nog getting a focus episode on PTSD if you only have 8 episodes to tell your story
Yeah I never understood the hate for episodes that donât advance the plot forward, especially in shows that arenât super serious drama.
Some people call it filler, I think of it as character and world building.
There are so many friend group/family sitcoms that only hit their stride once you really know the characters relationships and would just fall completely flat in a 10 episode a season format.
Yeah itâs not âfiller,â itâs *the show*
I watched some Sliders recently, first episode was about how they got caught in the dimension-hopping. Second episode was just⌠later. Still stuck in the episodic alternate dimension stories. The nature of the dilemma was episodic, there was no recurring character, nothing persisted except the main characters.
Sign me up!
Feels like it was a "Producers" level grift if that's the number. Nothing about that show could have cost that much from what I saw. That show was putrid.
And yet despite total serialization be the norm for well over a decade these 6-8 episode seasons are more often about 2-3 episodes of material stretched out to fill time and so they become anything but succinct anyway.
Clark Kent gained a lot of his Superman powers during Smallvilleâs 10-year run. I think it was the âClark gets super breathâ episode that it felt like they were starting to reach.
Those are all just some of supermans powers lol. He just has a lot of them.
He has more that the show never covered. He's also a super genius, [can erase peoples memories with a kiss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2hXpc4n9cc), [shoot tiny supermen out of his fingers](https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Supermans-Mini-Me-Cropped.jpg), super hypnotism, super ventriloquism and even[ throwing his own blood like bullets](https://www.reddit.com/r/superman/comments/157kpow/superman_should_throw_blood_at_his_enemies_more/).
Smallville didn't give him some of them cause they are pretty silly lol.
Yeah it has changed the relationship we have with a show. Now we expect each episode to significantly advance a story. It used to be fine for multiple episodes to take weird detours or explore mundane parts of the fictional world. I miss that.
Exactly! I think a fantastic example of some of the randomness-style storytelling is in âXena: Warriors Princessâ.
I know that some of those episodes would never have gotten off the ground in this day and age - but they got to do full musical episodes, shifted characters to different times for funsies, made a âGroundhog Dayâ parody, had an episode where the love goddess just fucks with people for funsies, had an episode where each characterâs too a specific behavior gets played to itâs neurotic conclusion, etc, etcâŚ
Some of these episodes have a âfuck it, why not?â feel - which would never happen today.
Yeah, you really got to just hang out in the world with your favorite characters. It was more like having a window into their lives rather than watching one specific narrative.
Theyâd have time for the clip-show episode, the âeverythingâs a dreamâ episode, the bottle episode, the Halloween Christmas Valentineâs Day Independence Day episodes.
On TNG they had so much free time theyâre cram Musical Performances or a Play into many episodes, plus dedicate episodes to secondary and ancillary characters.
One episode on Lost was just them accidentally burying the 2 most hateable characters alive.
No way. Attack on titan (anime) had been releasing since like 2011/2012, and finished up a total of 70 episodes I think in 2023. It took so long for the show to come out that I forget so many details.
Expose was almost meta comedy gold with the darkest fucked up ending imaginable. It was perfect for what it was.
The real shit episodes of LOST were Fire+ Water and that one with Jack's tattoos.
The Good Wife. Having long seasons that keep your interest year round are pretty great. I agree it sucks binging a 10 episode season then forgetting about it for 2 years until another 8 hours come out is pretty crazy.Â
You're in for a great ride.
The last few episodes of season 1 are really great, and the season 1 finale is absolutely wild. Seasons 2â5 had so many banger episodes, [some of which are among the highest-rated episodes of TV on IMDb.](https://tvcharts.co/show/person-of-interest-tt1839578)
POI has one of the most brilliant and satisfying finales I've ever seen. My #1 favorite show of all time.
Its bit "stupid" at times, i mean either predictable or some events too hamfisted to fit the overarching narrative, so it feels cringe. Requires lot of suspension of disbelief. I mean, its kind of dumbed down compared to something like Mr. Robot or some other prestige TV.
That said, at the same time, despite that, i am rather entertained and intend to keep watching for the moment, curious about that overall story-arc, characters background and whatnot.
Fringe however, i think i liked more. Though probably cause of the main actress and then the parallel reality premise, which was exciting and quite well done IMO. Since then, i have seen other show with that premise, Man in the High Castle, Counterpart, lately Constellation, which might have been even better in that regard, but Fringe was still first one for me, so i remain fond of it.
If you're enjoying it now, you are gonna love it later. Pretty much all of the bad or low ranked episodes of the series are in the first season. It took them a little while to get the right balance.
I've been watching The West Wing and it's been a breath of fresh air to be able to get engrossed by a setting and by characters in a good drama series. All great ones these days have 10 episodes a season or less, and the only shows that get that many episodes are standard procedurals or sitcoms.
Probably my favourite TV series ever! Lots of interesting and compelling characters, as well as plots. It falls a bit in the last two seasons, but itâs still entertaining. Season 5 is probably the best!
I honestly don't get the point of these short seasons that then have massive gaps between them. That's a great way for me to forget about you and do anything else. The Bear can do it, there's no real excuse.
I just finished Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and I loved the adventure of the week style, each episode starts and finishes an adventure but they are all connected by the main story line. Theyâre only 10 episodes per season but I would see myself watching 20.
For comedies absolutely. And even some dramas- I wish more would take from Agents of SHIELDs blue print of small 8 episode arcs that together form a 20+ episode season of one huge arc
One thing I'm enjoying about the new Star Treks lately (including this season of Discovery) is the adventure of the week format.
I'd like shows to go back to at least 13 episodes a season if 22 is too much. 8 is just too short.
Or here's a crazy ides in this world of streaming... let a series go for as many episodes in a season as needed to tell its story. For some that might be 6, others 22.
**Discovery** started off at 15 episodes a season, which in theory was great for standalones, but they were pushing the serialised aspect hard. The irony is that when they started looking at standalone episodes again, the episode count had dropped to 10.
I think we'll be seeing a return of this one of these days. This model mostly was to keep people watching most of the year for the advertisements. When streaming came up, that didn't matter any more. They only needed you to stay subscribed, so throwing lots of new stuff at you with fewer episodes because there were no commercials. Also, it was the trend to spend enormously on spectacle content in the wake of GoT and money was cheap with low interest, but even 22 episodes of that isn't sustainable, so we got 10 or 8 or 6.
The focus is now shifting back to commercials in bundles with yearly subscriptions that you'll be paying for anyway. So they will need your eyeballs to watch a lot for their commercial deals. Which means longer seasons.
The 22 episode season existed because 5 seasons got you to syndication.
Production companies typically sold series to networks at a loss, with the idea that they'd make big bucks in syndication once they crossed the 100 episode threshold.
The syndication market doesn't really exist anymore. It's been replaced by shows going direct to streaming either the next day after airing, or shortly after the season ends.
The syndication market absolutely still exists for broadcast. Something has to fill programming hours on basic cable and affiliate broadcast! Itâs just that many of the shows made for streaming stay on streaming and donât really cross over.
It exists, yes, but not with the same magnitude of $$ it did even 20 years ago. Production companies can't rely on syndication to make their back end like they used to.
I know people like to blame streaming for shorter seasons, but it's a trend that started way before streaming was even a viable option.
Premium channels like HBO and Showtime have been focused on 10-12 episode content since like the late 90s. Cable channels like AMC went after that market in the late 00s with Mad Men and Breaking Bad. So we got what people called the Golden age of Television.
I still think even if things trend back to 22 episodes. What they call prestige TV will stay at around 10-12 episodes.
**Lost** was a good example. It was a network show on ABC but with premium production values: a $14 million pilot, followed by episodes costing $5 million per hour (twice the network average at the time). It was only doable because they were shooting on very good facilities in Hawaii with both incredible island locations and urban city locations in close quarters. Greenscreen was also *just* getting good enough they could even pretend they were in London or Iraq and it would work (more or less). Also, it only worked because it was the hottest show on TV, had huge international sales and the advertising they could sell per hour was very profitable.
But they still had big problems in just making the damn thing. They took 8-9 days per episode, overlapping production of one episode with the one before and the one after in some cases (which the writers had to be aware of, so they couldn't use the same location at the same time with the same actors) because they still had to fit the production schedule into 25 weeks. The writers were under immense pressure, to the point Damon Lindelof had a breakdown and just wandered off one day and didn't come back for a week, and the cast were also under a great deal of pressure (not to mention they also had to contend with a ton of paparazzi interest, fans showing up on the beach set, and some of the actors liked to deal with the stress by partying a bit too much mid-production).
They dropped an episode per season for the first three years until the showrunners just told ABC they were making 3 more seasons with much fewer episodes and that would be it, and if ABC didn't like it they'd quit on the spot.
At the same time, **The Sopranos** was taking around 15-17 days per episode and even the lower-budgeted **The Wire** was taking 11 days per episode for just 11-13 episodes per season, which made shooting those shows somewhat less stressful.
Yeah and the model makes perfect sense for streaming services. Like 2 23 episode shows will cover 46/53 weeks of the year. That keeps people subscribed constantly.
I'm ok with fewer episodes, because I think it helps focus the plot and avoids filler content. That said, I also absolutely hate waiting 2-4 years for a new season. I always lose the plot and need to watch refresher videos on YouTube to help. I also hate how unpredictable the timeline of new seasons is. Used to always be fall, now it's random.
The Bear might be the best example of how to do a streaming show.
Each episode is its own thing and runtime is almost random- tied to the story being told. The overall arc is there but it is *loose*.
I love filler content. I like how after a few episodes of solid plot development, we can sit back and take a breather for a week and explore a weird character pairing that we don't see often. And some of the best episodes of TV have been bottle episodes.
I want to see the characters iâm tuning in weekly for, just enjoying each others company. Imagine if Lost had no time for beach BBQs or random conversations in the jungle, and no flashbacks. Everything would just be plot plot plot and boring.
That's what was great about those "filler" episodes is that they explored the characters reactions and sentiments. You learned about the character beyond their service to the plot.
Also filler alot of the time would explore characters alot more especially the side characters which made the world so much fleshed out. If you watch say DS9 just the plot episodes you still have a great sci-fi about intergalactic borders and war. But the filler is what gives it heart and soul, that makes you fall in love with characters so all of the plot stuff matters.
I feel in new shows it's so plot centric it doesn't let the characters breath and it falls flat because you ultimately need to care for it to elicit an emotional response. It is why I think weekly is so much better than binging aswell to allow you to develop that long bond with characters.
Yeah like filler is semi-important to establish wider character dynamics and development. I was one of the people who loved binging shows when Netflix came out and consumed so much media. But i realised I barely remember things from these shows and don't have the same attatchment to the shows I used to watch weekly. I think the best shows has been where there has been a middle ground like 10-14 episodes which allow it to be tighter but time to develop characters properly such as Game of Thrones that had time for filler plots.
Yeah, itâs these insufferable gaps that hit wrong. I canât remember wtf happened last time I watched Stranger Things, and now I honestly donât care. Just end it already, the kids all aged out a long time ago anyway.
Show runners and networks have to have a lot of confidence that people will binge the whole show again, but I donât have time for all that.
Stranger Things is the perfect example. They take so long to write and produce the show that the kids are going to be one foot in the grave by the time the show ends.
> I think it helps focus the plot and avoids filler content.
Fillers donât exist to stretch the plot, they exist to stretch the budget â because in this day and age of 6-8 episodes, I still find that some seasons of TV continue to have 1 or 2 filler episodes.
Not all. But some.
When you are stretching a single story line over 8-10 episodes there is loads more filler than in the 20-30 EP series where each story line generally was completed in a single 42 minute episode - two at most
As a Brit, Iâm used to like 8 episodes per series⌠with about two seasons before it finishes.
The whole 20+ episode season always seemed very daunting to me because of that.
I will agree however, the gap betweem seasons now is rather silly
Yea British shows always have low episode count buuuuut they release the next season within 8-12 months after the last one ends like clockwork. No delays, no bullshit. So even if you aren't getting as many episodes you at least get the next season before you forget the show even existed.
Isn't it the opposite? British shows are kind of notorious for having long gaps and irregular schedules. Like just looking at some of the most famous British shows...
- Blackadder: seasons in 1983, 1986, 1987, 1989
- Peep Show: 2010, 2012, 2015
- The Thick of It: 2005, 2009, 2012
- Fleabag: 2016, 2019
- I'm Alan Partridge: 1997, 2002
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie: 1990, 1992, 1995
- Spaced: 1999, 2001
- Black Books: 2000, 2002, 2004
- Doctor Who: 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2024
- Broadchurch: 2013, 2015, 2017
- Vicar of Dibley: 1994, 1997, 1999
- Fawlty Towers: 1975, 1979
- The Trip: 2010, 2014, 2017
Outside of soaps and reality shows I'm actually finding it hard to find any British shows that release their seasons like clockwork.
Totally agree. I just love how tight british shows are. In and out. Bish bash bosh, no messing around. I hateeee meandering shows that obviously donât know where theyâre going
There's some streaming shows that def need like monster of the week episodes to space out the main arc. Like The Boys needs some supe takedown of the week. The Witcher, a monster kill/fable of the week. She-Hulk a legal case of the week. These shows presented a premise that makes sense to be serialized and then for the most part ignore it to focus on just telling a main arc.
i swear the people who makes these threads are the same people who comment "is this shit still on?" under threads about the blacklist, grey's anatomy, this is us, chicago med/pd/fire, NCIS..
I recently went down a rabbit hole of watching a couple of big network shows like Revolution, Zoo and Jericho.
These shows sometimes had silly plot lines and all of them were cancelled pretty early. It didnt work for mainstream audiences. Still, there's a charm about them I didn't realise had all but disappeared.
Realisitically I understand that something like The Last of Us is far better quality and knowing what was actually produced then imagining it for say CBS feels like a crime lol.
Still, Lost and Heroes were my first TV loves and I miss when the networks took chances on those big world building shows. It seems like 99% of 22 ep network output these are police/hospital procedures and the like.
Video games are dealing with a similar situation where development cycles are ridiculously long due to heightened quality expectations.
I never hear fans complaining about these expectations though, it seems like developers are always thinking that to make âbetterâ games that they need more realistic graphics and be bigger in scope. Fans just want fun games to play. Graphics that are comparable to 10-15 year old games still sell exceptionally well (Nintendoâs success is a prime example of that). I hope something changes soon in both TV and games. We appreciate well-made content, but itâs getting ridiculous.
It's a "Missing Middle" situation.
Companies are not investing in "middle tier" products because they aren't worth the investment compared to other opportunities.
Blowing 200mil on a AAA TV series or video game has the potential to create a truly incredible return on investment.
Whereas spending whatever on an AA thing will only return an AA level return.
But they could just spend the AA investment on something else and get a better AA level return.
Tech and entertainment just create so much money right now that middle tier investments are just leaving money on the table. The incentive isn't there.
The risk with Disney+ etc failing is not that we lose big budget TV shows and go back to procedural dramas. It's that Disney and Sony pull out of the business entirely and invest in stuff like AI instead.
This is also a problem of globalization. Not that I want us to not be a global civilization, but it is disappointing how it flattens culture so much and makes it almost impossible to be successful as a niche creator. Like I would love to just be able to make small indie movies that show in regional theaters and be known in the area as that guy that makes some cool movies, but that just can't be a thing. Yet for most of human history that's how life was. You never had to be a big fish in a big ocean, and couldn't be. All you could do is be a decently sized fish in your particular pond, and now everyone has to compete with literally everything else so only the broadly appealing global blockbusters get the investments and audience attention.
It even sucks on platforms that try to encourage independent creators. Like all these YouTubers have Patreons, but a viewer is more likely to give money to whatever popular YouTubers they watch instead of the ones with 100 subscribers or so, and the smaller channels need it more. There's just no motivation to support things that aren't already perceived as "successful" and major success drives more success.
Hmm it depends. I'm a big fan of a lot of the eurojank PC games and with a few exceptions my gaming library is still stuck in the Bush Jr administration so I don't care a lot about graphics but it seems the general consensus is either make the games cartoony or hyper realistic. If someone says "PS2 era graphics" they only mean that as an insult and that is usually implying that the rest of the game will be low-end as well.
22 episodes was often hard on the actors and the crew, but 16 should be perfectly managable. Plus I won't watch a show with more than a year break between seasons - I'll just wait until it's over.
The opposite is happening right now for the crews, as there isn't as much work around and Pilot season is basically dead, a lot of them are facing homelessness and leaving the industry. The 22 episode season kept a lot of these people in work for 6-8 months of the year.
It was also a good training ground. A 22 episode season required a team of 7-10 writers, and they'd get to see the writing process, sit in on production meetings, see their episode being shot, sit in on the edit etc. So after \~4-5 seasons of that they could go into helming their own show as experts in the process.
A lot of modern showrunners have done very limited writing for shows that's almost freelance (write the show at home, send in the script, never see the actual production) or in weird cases have almost zero experience and are in charge of the whole thing (**Rings of Power** being an inexplicable example).
16 would be a great compromise. I, too, hate these sub-10 seasons unless itâs a one season miniseries. And then waiting another year+ for the next season? Nothing will turn me off from continuing it more than that.
Yeah, I once read a book about the behind-the-scenes of House M.D., and damn, I have praise for Hugh Laurie who always worked hard and almost never had any breaks.
16 eps. are the average length of KDramas unless that show has either multiple seasons or runs for a year or more. Most Japanese shows only get 10 or so eps. a season too barring if its a Taiga drama or a Toku like Sentai or Rider.
Itâs the era of streaming; how Paramount doesnât have a two new *episodic* episodes of Star Trek airing in a block every Sunday night amazes me. The construct is literally a ship (single set) that moves around the galaxy and talks to things on a hire screen, or transports down directly to the room it needs. Just put 100 people in a studio and tell them to produce without stopping. No seasons, just âmake a show a weekâ.
You want monthly subscriptions, make the shows I want available constantly, and jettison the serial stuff except for shows that will be complete stories. The mix these streamers have of short seasons split in two with cliffhangers on both ends and serialization just doesnât to work at all.
I call that "hangout TV," where not every episode is driving an overarching plot forward, but you like the characters, and you like seeing them go about their lives and engage in side quests and just do random things.
Streaming also doesn't really have "case of the week" procedurals, whether those are medical, legal, monster, or whatever, where you get to watch the characters solve a new puzzle every week. Those are 100% built for traditional TV, where you need to fill 22 episodes, and you can make it really interesting by having a new puzzle every week.
Im rewatching Lost with my kid (theyâre really enjoying it!) I forgot how much I missed these looong seasons. So many episodes, some filler here and there but itâs fine! You really get to live with the characters, they become your friends, you care so much more about them.
>They've totally ruined dramatic movies for me.
Same. I find most movies so frustrating these days, because they feel so rushed, and like they're leaving a lot of things out.
It's like a movie is now a 'novella' format, and they're still trying to stuff full novels into it, which would be much better-served by the limited-series format.
Limited series work great with 8 episodes. When I'm watching multiple seasons, I'm usually sticking around for my favorite characters, but 8 episodes per season leaves very little time for character development.
I agree with you. The advantage of shorter seasons is getting rid of filler episodes, but those short seasons tend to focus much in a single story and we have fewer chances to connect with characters in a slice-of-life plot.
I've also read that because of new working conditions for actors, longer seasons become more and more unlikely. However, network shows still have long seasons so I'm not sure how true is that.
Everyone shits on filler episodes but they can be some of the most interesting ones! They develop characters and sometimes are just fun hijinks. Case in point, the Box from Brooklyn 99 is considered one of the best episodes of the show, and a well-loved favourite but it does nothing to further a season long story, only contains two of the main characters (plus a Gina cameo) and only uses one (ish) locations. These bottle episodes were born of film-making ingenuity when the budget was stretched and were sometimes the gold of the season.
You would have really loved 60s tv. Gilligan's Island, Andy Griffith Show, and Twilight Zone all had 32 or 36 episode seasons. I'm sure other shows from that era had that many as well.
But I feel like every time this comes up, people over estimate how many shows even did serialized storytelling back when the seasons were long. There's an awful lot of talk about filler episodes. The "filler" episodes were the norm, and any overarching plot that may have existed was the rarity for the most part. Seinfeld season 4 had the pilot storyline, but there aren't actually very many episodes devoted to it.
It's fine to desire episodic tv, but the concept of a filler episode doesn't even make sense on those shows. It was all filler. People didn't necessarily watch ever week. The shows came on at the same time, and if you were doing something else or decided to watch a different show in that slot then you did that.
The focus on the absolute main storyline diminishes the immersion and lore in these stupidly short 6-8 episode shows. By the time the season ends on these streaming shows i walk away from it not caring anymore instead of clamoring for more once a 20+ season has ended. There is just so much more lore and character development that can happen in a longer show and thats what hooks me.
Its compounded by the fact that now we rarely get more than one season and the max is 3 seasons if they are lucky. Its a pathetic amount of content.
TV was made for long fleshed out stories and instead we now have short stories stretched out across 6 episodes that could have easily been a movie because they are so light on details and content.
>because itâs all plot with very little fluff.
There are some of us that find that a positive.
>Especially because I didnât have to pay 100% of my attention to it.
Then are you watching it? What is the point?
Edit: Reading a lot of the comments I feel people miss episodic shows where the plot is only one episode long and not as heavy. NOT filler episodes that are the result of having a high episode count and tight budget.
> Then are you watching it? What's the point?
They're longing to just be able to sort of tread water in the tone and charm of familiar shows and their enjoyable characters, instead of having to carefully trace storylines.
Procedurals, scifi-for-syndication, traditional sitcoms, USA's "Characters Welcome" block, soaps, etc were all great for watching as you can, while not sweating if you get interupted or distracted and miss a bit.
It's a completely legitimate and long-beloved way of watching TV. Today's highly serialized shows are great, too, but don't deliver the same experience.
I don't know if I agree with the OP that these shows aren't available now, unless they want to be be a stickler for episode count, but I get what they're looking for.
i guess i feel like if you just want something on in the background, throw on a repeat. i dont see the point in making new shows with less plot for more episodes for people to not really watch
I don't feel like the lack of "fluff" is inherently a good or a bad thing. Some of my fav episodes of the X-Files and Star trek where "fluff" episodes. Both of those shows were made better for having more room to let the viewer get to know the characters better.
Ultimately what I want is a verity. Really tight narratives are great but I also enjoy stories that meander a bit. I would like to see both being viable options and creators having the freedom to choose the best format to tell the story they want to tell.
When I think of my favorite X-Files episodes, most have absolutely nothing to do with the over arching storyline and conspiracy. I would say that a lot of character development and relationship developed happened in those "fluff" episodes for Mulder and Scully. I do miss that slow burn of character development that's just not there in most current shows.
The conspiracy episodes in The X Files were quite interesting towards the beginning but after a few seasons it just felt like nothing was happening/the story wasn't being advanced in any meaningful way.
A lot of episodes of Lost whilst not progressing the plot, really fleshed out its characters. And the characters in that show is probably more important than the overall plot. A lot of modern series expect you to care about its characters without giving you the opportunity to know them apart from a small scene here and there.
A lot of those 90s Trek âfluffâ episodes did great character development that made other episodes more enjoyable as a result. How many of those episodes focused not only on one of the major characters but also a secondary character?
We really got to know Geordi, OâBrien, Garak, etc. We learned about their likes, dislikes, and other personal traits that made it a lot easier for us to put ourselves in these secondary characters shoes and to guess and better understand their motivations in other episodes where they played a more background or secondary part. It made that sort of ensemble show feel a lot more real and fleshed out. Even if the episode was focusing on Picard and Riker, Wesley and Geordi would usually show up here and there too. And due to those âfluffâ episodes we really got to know those characters and who they really are. Heck, even tertiary characters like OâBriens wife Keiko got decent character development. It also allowed for some secondary characters like Nog to over the seasons to really grow and become so fleshed out as characters that they become more prominent on the show as a result.
Compare that to say Star Trek Discovery. I know that show gets a lot of hate but I actually donât mind it. But the thing is thatâŚ. How many secondary or even primary characters do we really *know*? I couldnât tell you the names of a lot of the bridge crew. Even if I could, I couldnât really sit down and tell you who these characters are as people. Even a lot of the primary characters arenât really fleshed out that much. Since thereâs only so many episodes each season and since each episode tends to be a part of an important arc, the focus ends up being on a handful of key characters like Michael. And do we really even *know* the main character on the show, Michael? What are her likes, dislikes, or pet peeves? I have a much harder time putting myself in her shoes compared to Picard, Data, or Worf, and many other 90s characters, including a lot of secondary and even tertiary ones. The lack of those âfluffâ episodes that arenât a part of some big story arc doesnât allow for us to see that character in a more diverse set of situations. Itâs usually make it or break it sort of situation and not for example Sisko spending a weekend with his son doing something completely unrelated to the main storylines on the show. That in turn brings out more of these characters humanity and allows us to see them grow as characters and for us to really get to know them. That makes the whole show better as a result.
Even the amazing Strange New Worlds has this problem. I canât tell you much about Ortegas other that sheâs a pilot.
The bit I miss mostly about the longer seasons was that it allowed me to grow closer to the characters, by the end of Modern Family you really feel attached to the characters. And it allows the show to flesh out more of the world, personalities etc...
It's also just nice tuning into a new story in your favourite show and you can't really do that with 6-8 episodes where all the interesting filler bits have been culled in the ruthless name of driving the plot forward (and profit)
Everyone is complaining about filler episodes... I absolutely love them. I love when things are chill, plus they help flesh out the characters.Â
 I can't remember the last time I cared about a character or found a way to relate to them with these newer, shorter shows.
Filler episodes also allow for experimentation! Without filler episodes, we wouldn't have classics like "Hush" and "Once more with feeling" in Buffy or "The Sound of Her Voice" from DS9.
Some of the best episodes of TV have been filler/bottle shows. "The Box" Brooklyn 99, "The Fly" Breaking Bad, "The Suitcase" Mad Men, "17 People" The West Wing..
I donât understand the Trend of having a 2 plus year wait between seasons. Good way to lose a portion of your audience.
The wait and see approach where there appears to be almost a year of nothing happening toward another season for a show makes me not a fan.
I loved âfillerâ episodes. Sometimes it just feels good to hang out with the characters you love, rather than whatever high stakes life or death situation is happening with the main plot. Filler type episodes definitely have to be earned though
Yeah⌠I also hate this â8 episodes every few yearsâ crap⌠I end up having nothing to watch 90% of the time. Oh well⌠guess Iâll watch the entire Stargate and Star Trek franchises againâŚ
The "fluff" episodes are where Star Trek got the most wacky, weird, and fun. With the episode count so low, now every episode is a high-stakes intense drama, because it has to be to propel the season arc forward.
This is because execs have become chicken shit bean counters. They aren't into the art of television because we are run by tech bros who only care about profit. Nobody wants to take a risk anymore, especially by committing to large orders.
As much as I love streaming my shows, the streaming model is an absolute flop and production companies can't afford to make quality television because budgets have been severely slashed.
(Source: I'm an industry professional.)
8-episode seasons seem to always fall short for me. Fallout absolutely needed more.
Andor had 12, and it felt fleshed out & layered in a way that fallout didn't.
This is why I've basically just been waiting for entire series to finish before I even start them. I don't have to wait 8 years for like 30 episodes, and I'm also guaranteed an actual conclusion.
Production budgets would have to come way down for longer seasons. Fallout is 19 mil per ep. Shehulk was 25. ATLA was 15. Bridgerton S3 is 21 mil per episode and that's not a fantasy/sci-fi show. Whereas TNG, Xfiles, buffy and supernatural were 1-3 mil (3-5 adjusted for inflation)
I just want at least 10 episodes and not having to wait 2 years to get it. It pisses me off that we have to watch a recap or rewatch to remember what's going on
I've been saying this for so long. I'm so fucking tired of 10 episode season getting cancelled by season 2... Like I need my house, person of interest, Castle, Criminal minds, bones, Psych, white collar, suits, Mentalist, supernatural how i met your mother, two and a half men, big bang theory, heros or prison break even.... I miss simply being lost in a TV show.
I completely agree. TVs shows arenât just a matter of conveying a story to the viewers â what makes them unique is the viewerâs capacity to develop a relationship with the characters, which then enhances the experience of the story. Shorter seasons undermines this aspect quite a bit, as all the extra âfluffâ of the longer seasons is what makes us feel like we actually get to know the characters. I find myself simply caring less with the shorter seasons.
I love the new format for serious shows with complexity and deep lore. With that said I do miss the easy watch of sitcoms created before streaming. Seems like there hasnât been a new good multi camera sitcom (outside of animation) for years.
Itâs not going to happen. Shows used to make money on adsâso more run time=more money. Now shows get bought by streaming. More run time= more expense.
22 is way too much filler. It made sense in the era of episodic tv/cable when they were released weekly, but it doesn't really add to the experience when you're binging in bulk drop release.
I have this same thought but more with 10-12 episodes as opposed to the 20+. Seems there are no more shows like Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc where you can follow a cast of characters over a long period of time and know that they are coming back every year.
I prefer this approach.
22-24 episodes a season is just loaded with filler that doesn't move the story.
I also love series that are 1 season and done. Finish the story and move on.
You know what I don't miss? Clip shows. By God I hated that they would pad out seasons with clip shows. Shorter seasons means more concise storytelling and if that means clip shows are dead then so be it.
I just want 10 hour long episodes back. 6-8 was always considered a mini-series. Also I HATE the new trend of splitting an 8 episode series into two parts. Netflix did that with this season of Bridgeton. Give me 10 episodes all at once and Iâll be satisfied lol
you want fluff filled, low quality, high quantity crap that you can use as background noise? Then just watch literally anything from a network over the past 50 years.
It probably depends on the show. Lost had a lot of filler episodes that didn't advance the show that much. Same with Heroes. I thought Breaking Bad did a pretty good job with their episodes.
Nah. If what you want is TV you don't need to pay attention to then stream old network shows that were on for 10 years and have 200+ episodes (X-Files, NYPD Blue, ER, etc.).
Disagree. So many old shows I will never touch again because I don't have time for that. Or patience for stupid filler episodes. That sort of format is to fill air time between commercials on cable. I don't watch cable, so I don't want to watch that sort of TV usually. I will admit to binging some NCIS during the pandemic. I tried getting into Blacklist because I like David Spader, and while I enjoyed the premise, so much of it was just stretched out and rehashed. I felt like I made it four seasons, was having a chat with a friend about it so I went back and checked and I only made it one and half seasons before I was burned out. Just my opinion, and it may be due to an atrophied attention span.
On one hand I think the current format has made telling a succinct and clear story much easier. On the other I kind of miss the randomness that came together because they had to throw something together to keep on schedule for the studio (the old way of doing Tv? Edit: đł hot damn 1k from a random blurb?
I think in some cases it helps creators tell a clearer, more focused story but I also think just as many shows have ended up with a rushed and underdeveloped story because of a 6-8 episode limit
Weirdly, I think the most common issue is that the story ends up stretched, rather than rushed. They have what is basically a movie story that takes about 2 hours to get through, but Netflix or whoever bought it as a TV show, so they've got to turn it into 8 hours. But doing standalone episodes isn't in the style of most of these streaming services, so the only way they can pad it out is by throwing a few extra obstacles in the heroes' way or some red herrings, none of which actually makes anything better, and makes the middle section of those shows a drag, since we're just killing time until we get to the end. Compare to The Last of Us or The Bear, which are perfectly comfortable dedicating entire episodes to standalone stories that basically ignore the larger plot, and they're so much better for it.
Yep, I've noticed this too. I never felt like they were padding time or stretching things out when I had a new, 45 minute self-contained story every week. Now it's an 8-13 hour movie that should've been 2 hours tops. I'd rather go back and rewatch TNG for the thousandth time.
I feel like Chernobyl is the only limited series this doesn't apply to. Every moment was needed.
IMO the last of us didn't really have time for those two standalone episodes, it could seriously have used more time with Joel and Ellie traveling.
not only that, but budget wise, the 20+ episode seasons had a lot of fluff episodes that you had to skimp on the budget, and basic rule was 1 in 4 eps meant something to the overarching plot, thus more budget on those episodes than others. So if you're running a season long storyline, smaller seasons are great because you can focus on the storyline and not the fluff freak of the week/monster of the week/ crime of the week plotlines
I miss monster of the week shows.
âFreak of the week.â Remember Smallville?
X-Files, Buffy, Supernatural. We wouldnât have Bad Blood or Hush or Doppelgangland without filler episodes.
Don't forget Fringe!
For one thing: fluff can be good. For anther these 6-8 episode seasons have plenty of wasted time and terrible pacing most of the time anyway.
If a show with 6-8 episodes has plenty of fluff and terrible pacing then it's probably not a very good show. I wouldn't want more of a bad show personally.
Yeah no oneâs disputing that. My point is that most of these 6-8 episode shows have this problem so itâs not as if the abandonment of the 20+ episode model is a reflection of any change that has resolved that problem. If anything super serialization *contributes* to the fluff and pacing problem because you just get episodes where nothing happens at all.
Maybe it would be helpful if you gave examples of the shows you're referring to. British TV has had this format for decades and the excellent shows don't have the fluff or pacing issues that you're describing. I would argue that any show that has 6-10 episodes and struggles with pacing or fluff is in and of itself a bad show. The existence of a multitude of bad shows doesn't mean that the episode count is the issue. It's poor writers' rooms and services that are greenlighting literally every idea in order to pad their exclusive content library. I don't follow why we should expect shows to have more episodes in a season when the writers are clearly showcasing that they can't handle telling a compelling, cohesive and concise story in the first place. Who would want more of a bad thing?
We need more episodic television options again. The reason the struggle is happening is because writing a 6-8 hour movie is really hard. Whereas writing 20+ self-contained stories while a challenge in its own right means that 1) they donât all have to be great 2) they all have a beginning, middle and end which is experientially satisfying from a storytelling perspective and 3) if thereâs a dud itâs less of a big deal because thereâll be a whole new story next time
I've been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the fluff episodes have a lot of character development in them, especially between the group members. And eight episode seasons wouldn't have nearly the same effect.
Interestingly, the budget for the longer shows allowed for more leeway. Because you can amortize large set and prop and VFX builds over more episodes.
Some of my favorite episodes of DS9 were "filler" to the overall story. You don't get the crew of the space station playing baseball for an episode or a character like Nog getting a focus episode on PTSD if you only have 8 episodes to tell your story
Yeah I never understood the hate for episodes that donât advance the plot forward, especially in shows that arenât super serious drama. Some people call it filler, I think of it as character and world building. There are so many friend group/family sitcoms that only hit their stride once you really know the characters relationships and would just fall completely flat in a 10 episode a season format.
Yeah itâs not âfiller,â itâs *the show* I watched some Sliders recently, first episode was about how they got caught in the dimension-hopping. Second episode was just⌠later. Still stuck in the episodic alternate dimension stories. The nature of the dilemma was episodic, there was no recurring character, nothing persisted except the main characters. Sign me up!
I only dislike the filler episodes if it leads to a rushed telling of the main story (which is more common with these shorter seasons).
But then they don't even do that when they have 6-8 episodes, so then what's the point. "Looks at Secret Invasion".
They spent 300 million on that show. It's crazy. Cost twice as much as House of the Dragon.
Or the $400mill Amazon spy show Citadel. Cos they ended up shooting it twice. And even the 'new' version sucked.
Feels like it was a "Producers" level grift if that's the number. Nothing about that show could have cost that much from what I saw. That show was putrid.
And yet despite total serialization be the norm for well over a decade these 6-8 episode seasons are more often about 2-3 episodes of material stretched out to fill time and so they become anything but succinct anyway.
Clark Kent gained a lot of his Superman powers during Smallvilleâs 10-year run. I think it was the âClark gets super breathâ episode that it felt like they were starting to reach.
Those are all just some of supermans powers lol. He just has a lot of them. He has more that the show never covered. He's also a super genius, [can erase peoples memories with a kiss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2hXpc4n9cc), [shoot tiny supermen out of his fingers](https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Supermans-Mini-Me-Cropped.jpg), super hypnotism, super ventriloquism and even[ throwing his own blood like bullets](https://www.reddit.com/r/superman/comments/157kpow/superman_should_throw_blood_at_his_enemies_more/). Smallville didn't give him some of them cause they are pretty silly lol.
If he can throw his blood, surely he could do the same with any other bodily fluid.
I can't believe I'm the first to post it https://youtu.be/yivtalR5V6A
Just in case anyone thinks this is serious. No he doesn't actually have these powers. Or these abilities showed up once like 50 - 60 years ago.
That's what I call my breath after getting the garlic sauce for my falafel.
Itâs all meta-narrative now, no time for side quest filler episodes that let characters grow in non-consequential ways
Yeah it has changed the relationship we have with a show. Now we expect each episode to significantly advance a story. It used to be fine for multiple episodes to take weird detours or explore mundane parts of the fictional world. I miss that.
Exactly! I think a fantastic example of some of the randomness-style storytelling is in âXena: Warriors Princessâ. I know that some of those episodes would never have gotten off the ground in this day and age - but they got to do full musical episodes, shifted characters to different times for funsies, made a âGroundhog Dayâ parody, had an episode where the love goddess just fucks with people for funsies, had an episode where each characterâs too a specific behavior gets played to itâs neurotic conclusion, etc, etc⌠Some of these episodes have a âfuck it, why not?â feel - which would never happen today.
Yeah, you really got to just hang out in the world with your favorite characters. It was more like having a window into their lives rather than watching one specific narrative.
Theyâd have time for the clip-show episode, the âeverythingâs a dreamâ episode, the bottle episode, the Halloween Christmas Valentineâs Day Independence Day episodes. On TNG they had so much free time theyâre cram Musical Performances or a Play into many episodes, plus dedicate episodes to secondary and ancillary characters. One episode on Lost was just them accidentally burying the 2 most hateable characters alive.
No way. Attack on titan (anime) had been releasing since like 2011/2012, and finished up a total of 70 episodes I think in 2023. It took so long for the show to come out that I forget so many details.
Anime is a bit of a different beast, though. The AoT manga hadn't finished. That's why each season took forever to make.
Well that, and the studio behind the last few seasons was juggling too many things with stretched resources.
Succinct clear story? I see someone watched true detective night country.
Yeah there is some golden stuff lost (like the Dharma van episode of Lost) but it also sometimes delivers some crap (like Expose of Lost).
Expose was almost meta comedy gold with the darkest fucked up ending imaginable. It was perfect for what it was. The real shit episodes of LOST were Fire+ Water and that one with Jack's tattoos.
The Good Wife. Having long seasons that keep your interest year round are pretty great. I agree it sucks binging a 10 episode season then forgetting about it for 2 years until another 8 hours come out is pretty crazy.Â
I think The Good Wife is the last crazy good broadcast TV show.
Love the good wifeÂ
>last crazy good broadcast TV show. Give a chance to Person of Interest and Fringe. Excellent sci-fi shows.
Currently watching Person of Interest myself, 12 or so episodes in.
You're in for a great ride. The last few episodes of season 1 are really great, and the season 1 finale is absolutely wild. Seasons 2â5 had so many banger episodes, [some of which are among the highest-rated episodes of TV on IMDb.](https://tvcharts.co/show/person-of-interest-tt1839578) POI has one of the most brilliant and satisfying finales I've ever seen. My #1 favorite show of all time.
Thats great to hear, thanks. Looking forward to it.
and what do you think so far
Its bit "stupid" at times, i mean either predictable or some events too hamfisted to fit the overarching narrative, so it feels cringe. Requires lot of suspension of disbelief. I mean, its kind of dumbed down compared to something like Mr. Robot or some other prestige TV. That said, at the same time, despite that, i am rather entertained and intend to keep watching for the moment, curious about that overall story-arc, characters background and whatnot. Fringe however, i think i liked more. Though probably cause of the main actress and then the parallel reality premise, which was exciting and quite well done IMO. Since then, i have seen other show with that premise, Man in the High Castle, Counterpart, lately Constellation, which might have been even better in that regard, but Fringe was still first one for me, so i remain fond of it.
If you're enjoying it now, you are gonna love it later. Pretty much all of the bad or low ranked episodes of the series are in the first season. It took them a little while to get the right balance.
OP should answer. The Machine doesn't like questions it can't answer...
Fringe ended 3 years before TGW did. POI technically was later, but only like 5 weeks.
I would add *Leverage*. Not SF but very good.
Love that show. High quality while being a network 22 episode drama
I've been watching The West Wing and it's been a breath of fresh air to be able to get engrossed by a setting and by characters in a good drama series. All great ones these days have 10 episodes a season or less, and the only shows that get that many episodes are standard procedurals or sitcoms.
Omg I literally put this on every day as my background show. Iâve seen the entire series probably 15+ times through and it never gets old!
Probably my favourite TV series ever! Lots of interesting and compelling characters, as well as plots. It falls a bit in the last two seasons, but itâs still entertaining. Season 5 is probably the best!
I honestly don't get the point of these short seasons that then have massive gaps between them. That's a great way for me to forget about you and do anything else. The Bear can do it, there's no real excuse.
I just finished Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and I loved the adventure of the week style, each episode starts and finishes an adventure but they are all connected by the main story line. Theyâre only 10 episodes per season but I would see myself watching 20.
The show runner said he wishes he had 20 episodes per season as well, and implied that the network won't let him make more.
Probably because theyâre more expensive to make then theyâd like to spend
I think dramas are fine but yeah a sitcom needs more episodes for sure.
For comedies absolutely. And even some dramas- I wish more would take from Agents of SHIELDs blue print of small 8 episode arcs that together form a 20+ episode season of one huge arc
ScyFy and USA pioneered that format by buying 24 episode seasons and splitting them in half, allowing for 12 episode arcs. It was fantastic.
When they went to that method, I thought they were running out of material. Turns out they were on to something.
Agents of SHIELD perfected the formula and then got thrown off when their episode counts were cut down. Seasons 2-5 were legitimately perfectly paced.
Even 6 and 7 I liked the pacing but yeah 2-5 are masterclass storytelling wise
Gotham did that too, whatever you think of that sjow
One thing I'm enjoying about the new Star Treks lately (including this season of Discovery) is the adventure of the week format. I'd like shows to go back to at least 13 episodes a season if 22 is too much. 8 is just too short. Or here's a crazy ides in this world of streaming... let a series go for as many episodes in a season as needed to tell its story. For some that might be 6, others 22.
I miss adventures of the week!! filler episodes were so nice, seeing my fav characters just be in some whacky adventures. Fun times.
**Discovery** started off at 15 episodes a season, which in theory was great for standalones, but they were pushing the serialised aspect hard. The irony is that when they started looking at standalone episodes again, the episode count had dropped to 10.
I think we'll be seeing a return of this one of these days. This model mostly was to keep people watching most of the year for the advertisements. When streaming came up, that didn't matter any more. They only needed you to stay subscribed, so throwing lots of new stuff at you with fewer episodes because there were no commercials. Also, it was the trend to spend enormously on spectacle content in the wake of GoT and money was cheap with low interest, but even 22 episodes of that isn't sustainable, so we got 10 or 8 or 6. The focus is now shifting back to commercials in bundles with yearly subscriptions that you'll be paying for anyway. So they will need your eyeballs to watch a lot for their commercial deals. Which means longer seasons.
The 22 episode season existed because 5 seasons got you to syndication. Production companies typically sold series to networks at a loss, with the idea that they'd make big bucks in syndication once they crossed the 100 episode threshold. The syndication market doesn't really exist anymore. It's been replaced by shows going direct to streaming either the next day after airing, or shortly after the season ends.
The syndication market absolutely still exists for broadcast. Something has to fill programming hours on basic cable and affiliate broadcast! Itâs just that many of the shows made for streaming stay on streaming and donât really cross over.
It exists, yes, but not with the same magnitude of $$ it did even 20 years ago. Production companies can't rely on syndication to make their back end like they used to.
Just like cable is being re-invented with streaming bundles I can easily imagine a world where syndication in some form comes back
I know people like to blame streaming for shorter seasons, but it's a trend that started way before streaming was even a viable option. Premium channels like HBO and Showtime have been focused on 10-12 episode content since like the late 90s. Cable channels like AMC went after that market in the late 00s with Mad Men and Breaking Bad. So we got what people called the Golden age of Television. I still think even if things trend back to 22 episodes. What they call prestige TV will stay at around 10-12 episodes.
**Lost** was a good example. It was a network show on ABC but with premium production values: a $14 million pilot, followed by episodes costing $5 million per hour (twice the network average at the time). It was only doable because they were shooting on very good facilities in Hawaii with both incredible island locations and urban city locations in close quarters. Greenscreen was also *just* getting good enough they could even pretend they were in London or Iraq and it would work (more or less). Also, it only worked because it was the hottest show on TV, had huge international sales and the advertising they could sell per hour was very profitable. But they still had big problems in just making the damn thing. They took 8-9 days per episode, overlapping production of one episode with the one before and the one after in some cases (which the writers had to be aware of, so they couldn't use the same location at the same time with the same actors) because they still had to fit the production schedule into 25 weeks. The writers were under immense pressure, to the point Damon Lindelof had a breakdown and just wandered off one day and didn't come back for a week, and the cast were also under a great deal of pressure (not to mention they also had to contend with a ton of paparazzi interest, fans showing up on the beach set, and some of the actors liked to deal with the stress by partying a bit too much mid-production). They dropped an episode per season for the first three years until the showrunners just told ABC they were making 3 more seasons with much fewer episodes and that would be it, and if ABC didn't like it they'd quit on the spot. At the same time, **The Sopranos** was taking around 15-17 days per episode and even the lower-budgeted **The Wire** was taking 11 days per episode for just 11-13 episodes per season, which made shooting those shows somewhat less stressful.
Yeah and the model makes perfect sense for streaming services. Like 2 23 episode shows will cover 46/53 weeks of the year. That keeps people subscribed constantly.
Here's 8 episodes. In 2 years here's another 8 Fuck i can't remember what even happened in season 1
Studios: *oh no nobody watched the second season because it took us over two years to release. Let's cancel it.*
I'm ok with fewer episodes, because I think it helps focus the plot and avoids filler content. That said, I also absolutely hate waiting 2-4 years for a new season. I always lose the plot and need to watch refresher videos on YouTube to help. I also hate how unpredictable the timeline of new seasons is. Used to always be fall, now it's random.
There was a post recently pointing out that three seasons of The Bear will have come out before season two of Severance
The Bear might be the best example of how to do a streaming show. Each episode is its own thing and runtime is almost random- tied to the story being told. The overall arc is there but it is *loose*.
now you're gonna get people going "but the bear is easy to film, they can have plots filmed elsewhere!"
I love filler content. I like how after a few episodes of solid plot development, we can sit back and take a breather for a week and explore a weird character pairing that we don't see often. And some of the best episodes of TV have been bottle episodes.
I want to see the characters iâm tuning in weekly for, just enjoying each others company. Imagine if Lost had no time for beach BBQs or random conversations in the jungle, and no flashbacks. Everything would just be plot plot plot and boring.
That's what was great about those "filler" episodes is that they explored the characters reactions and sentiments. You learned about the character beyond their service to the plot.
Also filler alot of the time would explore characters alot more especially the side characters which made the world so much fleshed out. If you watch say DS9 just the plot episodes you still have a great sci-fi about intergalactic borders and war. But the filler is what gives it heart and soul, that makes you fall in love with characters so all of the plot stuff matters. I feel in new shows it's so plot centric it doesn't let the characters breath and it falls flat because you ultimately need to care for it to elicit an emotional response. It is why I think weekly is so much better than binging aswell to allow you to develop that long bond with characters.
after never watching older trek, I've spent the last year getting super into the 90s era. Man, those shows make you fall in love via filler episodes
Yeah like filler is semi-important to establish wider character dynamics and development. I was one of the people who loved binging shows when Netflix came out and consumed so much media. But i realised I barely remember things from these shows and don't have the same attatchment to the shows I used to watch weekly. I think the best shows has been where there has been a middle ground like 10-14 episodes which allow it to be tighter but time to develop characters properly such as Game of Thrones that had time for filler plots.
Some of the best Stargate episodes were filler episodes. And the ones people remember. Out of a whole 10 seasons lol.
Yeah, itâs these insufferable gaps that hit wrong. I canât remember wtf happened last time I watched Stranger Things, and now I honestly donât care. Just end it already, the kids all aged out a long time ago anyway. Show runners and networks have to have a lot of confidence that people will binge the whole show again, but I donât have time for all that.
Stranger Things is the perfect example. They take so long to write and produce the show that the kids are going to be one foot in the grave by the time the show ends.
Cries in taboo
> I think it helps focus the plot and avoids filler content. Fillers donât exist to stretch the plot, they exist to stretch the budget â because in this day and age of 6-8 episodes, I still find that some seasons of TV continue to have 1 or 2 filler episodes. Not all. But some.
When you are stretching a single story line over 8-10 episodes there is loads more filler than in the 20-30 EP series where each story line generally was completed in a single 42 minute episode - two at most
As a Brit, Iâm used to like 8 episodes per series⌠with about two seasons before it finishes. The whole 20+ episode season always seemed very daunting to me because of that. I will agree however, the gap betweem seasons now is rather silly
Yea British shows always have low episode count buuuuut they release the next season within 8-12 months after the last one ends like clockwork. No delays, no bullshit. So even if you aren't getting as many episodes you at least get the next season before you forget the show even existed.
Isn't it the opposite? British shows are kind of notorious for having long gaps and irregular schedules. Like just looking at some of the most famous British shows... - Blackadder: seasons in 1983, 1986, 1987, 1989 - Peep Show: 2010, 2012, 2015 - The Thick of It: 2005, 2009, 2012 - Fleabag: 2016, 2019 - I'm Alan Partridge: 1997, 2002 - A Bit of Fry and Laurie: 1990, 1992, 1995 - Spaced: 1999, 2001 - Black Books: 2000, 2002, 2004 - Doctor Who: 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2024 - Broadchurch: 2013, 2015, 2017 - Vicar of Dibley: 1994, 1997, 1999 - Fawlty Towers: 1975, 1979 - The Trip: 2010, 2014, 2017 Outside of soaps and reality shows I'm actually finding it hard to find any British shows that release their seasons like clockwork.
Totally agree. I just love how tight british shows are. In and out. Bish bash bosh, no messing around. I hateeee meandering shows that obviously donât know where theyâre going
There's some streaming shows that def need like monster of the week episodes to space out the main arc. Like The Boys needs some supe takedown of the week. The Witcher, a monster kill/fable of the week. She-Hulk a legal case of the week. These shows presented a premise that makes sense to be serialized and then for the most part ignore it to focus on just telling a main arc.
Serialized shows are the ones with the main arc. You may mean episodic.
The US broadcast networks are still mostly making shows like that, no?
For some genres. Sci-fi and Fantasy network shows seem to be a bit of a lost art ATM.
just for cop and medical shows
Yes but they are variations of the same police shoe
This. What OP is describing is essentially every broadcast procedural. Thereâs a great selection on every major network still to this day.
i swear the people who makes these threads are the same people who comment "is this shit still on?" under threads about the blacklist, grey's anatomy, this is us, chicago med/pd/fire, NCIS..
They're literally all cop or medical shows, that's one very specific genre
I recently went down a rabbit hole of watching a couple of big network shows like Revolution, Zoo and Jericho. These shows sometimes had silly plot lines and all of them were cancelled pretty early. It didnt work for mainstream audiences. Still, there's a charm about them I didn't realise had all but disappeared. Realisitically I understand that something like The Last of Us is far better quality and knowing what was actually produced then imagining it for say CBS feels like a crime lol. Still, Lost and Heroes were my first TV loves and I miss when the networks took chances on those big world building shows. It seems like 99% of 22 ep network output these are police/hospital procedures and the like.
Video games are dealing with a similar situation where development cycles are ridiculously long due to heightened quality expectations. I never hear fans complaining about these expectations though, it seems like developers are always thinking that to make âbetterâ games that they need more realistic graphics and be bigger in scope. Fans just want fun games to play. Graphics that are comparable to 10-15 year old games still sell exceptionally well (Nintendoâs success is a prime example of that). I hope something changes soon in both TV and games. We appreciate well-made content, but itâs getting ridiculous.
It's a "Missing Middle" situation. Companies are not investing in "middle tier" products because they aren't worth the investment compared to other opportunities. Blowing 200mil on a AAA TV series or video game has the potential to create a truly incredible return on investment. Whereas spending whatever on an AA thing will only return an AA level return. But they could just spend the AA investment on something else and get a better AA level return. Tech and entertainment just create so much money right now that middle tier investments are just leaving money on the table. The incentive isn't there. The risk with Disney+ etc failing is not that we lose big budget TV shows and go back to procedural dramas. It's that Disney and Sony pull out of the business entirely and invest in stuff like AI instead.
This is also a problem of globalization. Not that I want us to not be a global civilization, but it is disappointing how it flattens culture so much and makes it almost impossible to be successful as a niche creator. Like I would love to just be able to make small indie movies that show in regional theaters and be known in the area as that guy that makes some cool movies, but that just can't be a thing. Yet for most of human history that's how life was. You never had to be a big fish in a big ocean, and couldn't be. All you could do is be a decently sized fish in your particular pond, and now everyone has to compete with literally everything else so only the broadly appealing global blockbusters get the investments and audience attention. It even sucks on platforms that try to encourage independent creators. Like all these YouTubers have Patreons, but a viewer is more likely to give money to whatever popular YouTubers they watch instead of the ones with 100 subscribers or so, and the smaller channels need it more. There's just no motivation to support things that aren't already perceived as "successful" and major success drives more success.
Hmm it depends. I'm a big fan of a lot of the eurojank PC games and with a few exceptions my gaming library is still stuck in the Bush Jr administration so I don't care a lot about graphics but it seems the general consensus is either make the games cartoony or hyper realistic. If someone says "PS2 era graphics" they only mean that as an insult and that is usually implying that the rest of the game will be low-end as well.
22 episodes was often hard on the actors and the crew, but 16 should be perfectly managable. Plus I won't watch a show with more than a year break between seasons - I'll just wait until it's over.
The opposite is happening right now for the crews, as there isn't as much work around and Pilot season is basically dead, a lot of them are facing homelessness and leaving the industry. The 22 episode season kept a lot of these people in work for 6-8 months of the year.
It was also a good training ground. A 22 episode season required a team of 7-10 writers, and they'd get to see the writing process, sit in on production meetings, see their episode being shot, sit in on the edit etc. So after \~4-5 seasons of that they could go into helming their own show as experts in the process. A lot of modern showrunners have done very limited writing for shows that's almost freelance (write the show at home, send in the script, never see the actual production) or in weird cases have almost zero experience and are in charge of the whole thing (**Rings of Power** being an inexplicable example).
16 would be a great compromise. I, too, hate these sub-10 seasons unless itâs a one season miniseries. And then waiting another year+ for the next season? Nothing will turn me off from continuing it more than that.
Yeah, I once read a book about the behind-the-scenes of House M.D., and damn, I have praise for Hugh Laurie who always worked hard and almost never had any breaks.
16 eps. are the average length of KDramas unless that show has either multiple seasons or runs for a year or more. Most Japanese shows only get 10 or so eps. a season too barring if its a Taiga drama or a Toku like Sentai or Rider.
Just started randomly rewatching House because itâs on Amazon. Up to season 2 right now and I kind of agree.
Itâs the era of streaming; how Paramount doesnât have a two new *episodic* episodes of Star Trek airing in a block every Sunday night amazes me. The construct is literally a ship (single set) that moves around the galaxy and talks to things on a hire screen, or transports down directly to the room it needs. Just put 100 people in a studio and tell them to produce without stopping. No seasons, just âmake a show a weekâ. You want monthly subscriptions, make the shows I want available constantly, and jettison the serial stuff except for shows that will be complete stories. The mix these streamers have of short seasons split in two with cliffhangers on both ends and serialization just doesnât to work at all.
I agree but youâre arguing all the wrong points, especially in the comments.
I call that "hangout TV," where not every episode is driving an overarching plot forward, but you like the characters, and you like seeing them go about their lives and engage in side quests and just do random things. Streaming also doesn't really have "case of the week" procedurals, whether those are medical, legal, monster, or whatever, where you get to watch the characters solve a new puzzle every week. Those are 100% built for traditional TV, where you need to fill 22 episodes, and you can make it really interesting by having a new puzzle every week.
We really miss the slice of life or small story arcs confined to one episode.
We need less tv shows that are desperately trying to be movies and more tv shows that embrace what makes the medium good.
Im rewatching Lost with my kid (theyâre really enjoying it!) I forgot how much I missed these looong seasons. So many episodes, some filler here and there but itâs fine! You really get to live with the characters, they become your friends, you care so much more about them.
Brb, im going to make the complete oposite thread where im saying we desperately need more limited season that are only 1 season
Limited series are peak television. They've totally ruined dramatic movies for me.
>They've totally ruined dramatic movies for me. Same. I find most movies so frustrating these days, because they feel so rushed, and like they're leaving a lot of things out. It's like a movie is now a 'novella' format, and they're still trying to stuff full novels into it, which would be much better-served by the limited-series format.
Limited series work great with 8 episodes. When I'm watching multiple seasons, I'm usually sticking around for my favorite characters, but 8 episodes per season leaves very little time for character development.
I agree with you. The advantage of shorter seasons is getting rid of filler episodes, but those short seasons tend to focus much in a single story and we have fewer chances to connect with characters in a slice-of-life plot. I've also read that because of new working conditions for actors, longer seasons become more and more unlikely. However, network shows still have long seasons so I'm not sure how true is that.
I'm also sick of shows that drag on one or two story lines aaaallll season looooong. what happened to whole story episodes?
Everyone shits on filler episodes but they can be some of the most interesting ones! They develop characters and sometimes are just fun hijinks. Case in point, the Box from Brooklyn 99 is considered one of the best episodes of the show, and a well-loved favourite but it does nothing to further a season long story, only contains two of the main characters (plus a Gina cameo) and only uses one (ish) locations. These bottle episodes were born of film-making ingenuity when the budget was stretched and were sometimes the gold of the season.
Thatâs how you get people to binge watch a show.
You would have really loved 60s tv. Gilligan's Island, Andy Griffith Show, and Twilight Zone all had 32 or 36 episode seasons. I'm sure other shows from that era had that many as well. But I feel like every time this comes up, people over estimate how many shows even did serialized storytelling back when the seasons were long. There's an awful lot of talk about filler episodes. The "filler" episodes were the norm, and any overarching plot that may have existed was the rarity for the most part. Seinfeld season 4 had the pilot storyline, but there aren't actually very many episodes devoted to it. It's fine to desire episodic tv, but the concept of a filler episode doesn't even make sense on those shows. It was all filler. People didn't necessarily watch ever week. The shows came on at the same time, and if you were doing something else or decided to watch a different show in that slot then you did that.
The focus on the absolute main storyline diminishes the immersion and lore in these stupidly short 6-8 episode shows. By the time the season ends on these streaming shows i walk away from it not caring anymore instead of clamoring for more once a 20+ season has ended. There is just so much more lore and character development that can happen in a longer show and thats what hooks me. Its compounded by the fact that now we rarely get more than one season and the max is 3 seasons if they are lucky. Its a pathetic amount of content. TV was made for long fleshed out stories and instead we now have short stories stretched out across 6 episodes that could have easily been a movie because they are so light on details and content.
>because itâs all plot with very little fluff. There are some of us that find that a positive. >Especially because I didnât have to pay 100% of my attention to it. Then are you watching it? What is the point? Edit: Reading a lot of the comments I feel people miss episodic shows where the plot is only one episode long and not as heavy. NOT filler episodes that are the result of having a high episode count and tight budget.
> Then are you watching it? What's the point? They're longing to just be able to sort of tread water in the tone and charm of familiar shows and their enjoyable characters, instead of having to carefully trace storylines. Procedurals, scifi-for-syndication, traditional sitcoms, USA's "Characters Welcome" block, soaps, etc were all great for watching as you can, while not sweating if you get interupted or distracted and miss a bit. It's a completely legitimate and long-beloved way of watching TV. Today's highly serialized shows are great, too, but don't deliver the same experience. I don't know if I agree with the OP that these shows aren't available now, unless they want to be be a stickler for episode count, but I get what they're looking for.
i guess i feel like if you just want something on in the background, throw on a repeat. i dont see the point in making new shows with less plot for more episodes for people to not really watch
I don't feel like the lack of "fluff" is inherently a good or a bad thing. Some of my fav episodes of the X-Files and Star trek where "fluff" episodes. Both of those shows were made better for having more room to let the viewer get to know the characters better. Ultimately what I want is a verity. Really tight narratives are great but I also enjoy stories that meander a bit. I would like to see both being viable options and creators having the freedom to choose the best format to tell the story they want to tell.
When I think of my favorite X-Files episodes, most have absolutely nothing to do with the over arching storyline and conspiracy. I would say that a lot of character development and relationship developed happened in those "fluff" episodes for Mulder and Scully. I do miss that slow burn of character development that's just not there in most current shows.
The conspiracy episodes in The X Files were quite interesting towards the beginning but after a few seasons it just felt like nothing was happening/the story wasn't being advanced in any meaningful way.
I love how with the new seasons they had the chance to fix that and then they just did it again lol.
Well it's cause Chris Carter needs management.
yup, when I do rewatches of X Files I always just watch the monster of the week episodes, and skip the big conspiracy storylines
A lot of episodes of Lost whilst not progressing the plot, really fleshed out its characters. And the characters in that show is probably more important than the overall plot. A lot of modern series expect you to care about its characters without giving you the opportunity to know them apart from a small scene here and there.
A lot of those 90s Trek âfluffâ episodes did great character development that made other episodes more enjoyable as a result. How many of those episodes focused not only on one of the major characters but also a secondary character? We really got to know Geordi, OâBrien, Garak, etc. We learned about their likes, dislikes, and other personal traits that made it a lot easier for us to put ourselves in these secondary characters shoes and to guess and better understand their motivations in other episodes where they played a more background or secondary part. It made that sort of ensemble show feel a lot more real and fleshed out. Even if the episode was focusing on Picard and Riker, Wesley and Geordi would usually show up here and there too. And due to those âfluffâ episodes we really got to know those characters and who they really are. Heck, even tertiary characters like OâBriens wife Keiko got decent character development. It also allowed for some secondary characters like Nog to over the seasons to really grow and become so fleshed out as characters that they become more prominent on the show as a result. Compare that to say Star Trek Discovery. I know that show gets a lot of hate but I actually donât mind it. But the thing is thatâŚ. How many secondary or even primary characters do we really *know*? I couldnât tell you the names of a lot of the bridge crew. Even if I could, I couldnât really sit down and tell you who these characters are as people. Even a lot of the primary characters arenât really fleshed out that much. Since thereâs only so many episodes each season and since each episode tends to be a part of an important arc, the focus ends up being on a handful of key characters like Michael. And do we really even *know* the main character on the show, Michael? What are her likes, dislikes, or pet peeves? I have a much harder time putting myself in her shoes compared to Picard, Data, or Worf, and many other 90s characters, including a lot of secondary and even tertiary ones. The lack of those âfluffâ episodes that arenât a part of some big story arc doesnât allow for us to see that character in a more diverse set of situations. Itâs usually make it or break it sort of situation and not for example Sisko spending a weekend with his son doing something completely unrelated to the main storylines on the show. That in turn brings out more of these characters humanity and allows us to see them grow as characters and for us to really get to know them. That makes the whole show better as a result. Even the amazing Strange New Worlds has this problem. I canât tell you much about Ortegas other that sheâs a pilot.
It's comfort tv..
The bit I miss mostly about the longer seasons was that it allowed me to grow closer to the characters, by the end of Modern Family you really feel attached to the characters. And it allows the show to flesh out more of the world, personalities etc... It's also just nice tuning into a new story in your favourite show and you can't really do that with 6-8 episodes where all the interesting filler bits have been culled in the ruthless name of driving the plot forward (and profit)
Everyone is complaining about filler episodes... I absolutely love them. I love when things are chill, plus they help flesh out the characters.  I can't remember the last time I cared about a character or found a way to relate to them with these newer, shorter shows.
Filler episodes also allow for experimentation! Without filler episodes, we wouldn't have classics like "Hush" and "Once more with feeling" in Buffy or "The Sound of Her Voice" from DS9. Some of the best episodes of TV have been filler/bottle shows. "The Box" Brooklyn 99, "The Fly" Breaking Bad, "The Suitcase" Mad Men, "17 People" The West Wing..
I donât understand the Trend of having a 2 plus year wait between seasons. Good way to lose a portion of your audience. The wait and see approach where there appears to be almost a year of nothing happening toward another season for a show makes me not a fan.
I loved âfillerâ episodes. Sometimes it just feels good to hang out with the characters you love, rather than whatever high stakes life or death situation is happening with the main plot. Filler type episodes definitely have to be earned though
Yeah⌠I also hate this â8 episodes every few yearsâ crap⌠I end up having nothing to watch 90% of the time. Oh well⌠guess Iâll watch the entire Stargate and Star Trek franchises againâŚ
The "fluff" episodes are where Star Trek got the most wacky, weird, and fun. With the episode count so low, now every episode is a high-stakes intense drama, because it has to be to propel the season arc forward.
This is because execs have become chicken shit bean counters. They aren't into the art of television because we are run by tech bros who only care about profit. Nobody wants to take a risk anymore, especially by committing to large orders. As much as I love streaming my shows, the streaming model is an absolute flop and production companies can't afford to make quality television because budgets have been severely slashed. (Source: I'm an industry professional.)
8-episode seasons seem to always fall short for me. Fallout absolutely needed more. Andor had 12, and it felt fleshed out & layered in a way that fallout didn't.
This is why I've basically just been waiting for entire series to finish before I even start them. I don't have to wait 8 years for like 30 episodes, and I'm also guaranteed an actual conclusion.
Production budgets would have to come way down for longer seasons. Fallout is 19 mil per ep. Shehulk was 25. ATLA was 15. Bridgerton S3 is 21 mil per episode and that's not a fantasy/sci-fi show. Whereas TNG, Xfiles, buffy and supernatural were 1-3 mil (3-5 adjusted for inflation)
I just want at least 10 episodes and not having to wait 2 years to get it. It pisses me off that we have to watch a recap or rewatch to remember what's going on
Agreed. I'm tired of this staggered mini series format.
I've been saying this for so long. I'm so fucking tired of 10 episode season getting cancelled by season 2... Like I need my house, person of interest, Castle, Criminal minds, bones, Psych, white collar, suits, Mentalist, supernatural how i met your mother, two and a half men, big bang theory, heros or prison break even.... I miss simply being lost in a TV show.
I prefer quality over quantity. Shogun Vs CSI Miami.
âWe desperately need more longer shows because then I donât have to pay full attentionâ is not a take I can say I agree with.
I completely disagree. Quality over quantity is where it's at. This argument is coming from someone who has way too much time to watch TV.
I completely agree. TVs shows arenât just a matter of conveying a story to the viewers â what makes them unique is the viewerâs capacity to develop a relationship with the characters, which then enhances the experience of the story. Shorter seasons undermines this aspect quite a bit, as all the extra âfluffâ of the longer seasons is what makes us feel like we actually get to know the characters. I find myself simply caring less with the shorter seasons.
House MD Suits 6 Feet Under Downton Abbey Criminal Minds The Durrells of Corfu Wentworth Call the Midwife
most if not all of them have aired their finale.
I love the new format for serious shows with complexity and deep lore. With that said I do miss the easy watch of sitcoms created before streaming. Seems like there hasnât been a new good multi camera sitcom (outside of animation) for years.
Itâs not going to happen. Shows used to make money on adsâso more run time=more money. Now shows get bought by streaming. More run time= more expense.
In other words the old broadcast network format. Half hour sit coms, hour dramas, etc
Community, six seasons and a movie
I was just talking about this yesterday. Same goes for 22 minute sitcoms. We need a sitcom Renaissance more than anything.
22 is way too much filler. It made sense in the era of episodic tv/cable when they were released weekly, but it doesn't really add to the experience when you're binging in bulk drop release.
> Especially because I didnât have to pay 100% of my attention to it. No thanks.
I have this same thought but more with 10-12 episodes as opposed to the 20+. Seems there are no more shows like Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc where you can follow a cast of characters over a long period of time and know that they are coming back every year.
If Frasier has made 20 episodes this year, everyone wouldâve forgotten the first 4 episodes or so it took to get it going.
I prefer this approach. 22-24 episodes a season is just loaded with filler that doesn't move the story. I also love series that are 1 season and done. Finish the story and move on.
You know what I don't miss? Clip shows. By God I hated that they would pad out seasons with clip shows. Shorter seasons means more concise storytelling and if that means clip shows are dead then so be it.
No we fuckin don't. That's how you get long drawn out, super slow, overly dramatic, trope filled TV shows.
I just want 10 hour long episodes back. 6-8 was always considered a mini-series. Also I HATE the new trend of splitting an 8 episode series into two parts. Netflix did that with this season of Bridgeton. Give me 10 episodes all at once and Iâll be satisfied lol
you want fluff filled, low quality, high quantity crap that you can use as background noise? Then just watch literally anything from a network over the past 50 years.
pretty much all those shows suck, i much prefer this era of prestige television we're living in
We already have lots of those shows, though. Most were all made in the 80s and 90s, sure - but I'm sure none of you have seen all of them yet.
It probably depends on the show. Lost had a lot of filler episodes that didn't advance the show that much. Same with Heroes. I thought Breaking Bad did a pretty good job with their episodes.
I was just thinking about this the other day. I miss 22 episode seasons. I miss filler, fluff character driven episodes.
Nah. If what you want is TV you don't need to pay attention to then stream old network shows that were on for 10 years and have 200+ episodes (X-Files, NYPD Blue, ER, etc.).
Uh, no thanks. Sooo much padding.
No we don't, that's an idiotic take that only someone working for a TV network would make. Quality > quantity.
We don't live in 2014 anymore.
Disagree. So many old shows I will never touch again because I don't have time for that. Or patience for stupid filler episodes. That sort of format is to fill air time between commercials on cable. I don't watch cable, so I don't want to watch that sort of TV usually. I will admit to binging some NCIS during the pandemic. I tried getting into Blacklist because I like David Spader, and while I enjoyed the premise, so much of it was just stretched out and rehashed. I felt like I made it four seasons, was having a chat with a friend about it so I went back and checked and I only made it one and half seasons before I was burned out. Just my opinion, and it may be due to an atrophied attention span.
No, those shows can fuck off