4 ms·

It's not just comedies. Every damn broadcast originated SF or drama has a cliff hanger every 5 minutes, including the strange and infuriating US innovation of r

It's not just comedies. Every damn broadcast originated SF or drama has a cliff hanger every 5 minutes, including the strange and infuriating US innovation of right after the titles - now 5 minutes in! Then a scene break that's where the adverts would have been. Then the ones that affect all US output, including Netflix etc: The inevitable cliff hanger at the end of the episodes, and a big major cliff hanger at the end of the series - that has no guarantee of another yet. So when Netflix decide to kill yet another after the first series, there's no point watching it as there will be no closure. Whatever happened to stuff like Star Trek where each episode could be stand-alone, or a series was complete with closure? Crappy series cliff hangers never got me to tune into the next series - liking the progression of the story, the acting etc did. Ironically I gave up broadcast commercial TV about the same time ago as you - because it had got too much with the adverts, and American direction. That was long before product placement in the UK, and a couple of liberalisations of regulation. When I visit friends now I am struck how comically often and terrible ads are. My memory says they used to try a bit harder and managed to get them at least competently produced and directed.

foobarian 7y ago
The worst are the various documentary murder shows. There is not much to the story, so not only do they have cliff-hangers before commercial breaks, but they also recap the previous segment for like half the next segment. It's comical. It's like they heard the common talk-giving advice "tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them."
- wvenable 7y ago
  The Gift Shop Sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc I used to love watching Myth Busters but it became so much like that it was ridiculous. There was a time you could download torrents of Myth Busters episodes with all the recaps removed.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    I used to like those when they first appeared just as a new series catch up. Then it got utterly pointless and self-parody with weekly and break catch ups and coming soon teasers. Even news progs joined in. How to save 5+ minutes of programme making with real time repeats.
  - robk 7y ago
    There are torrents of totally recut Mythbusters with all these crappy bits cut out. It's so much better
- mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
  Oh man I can relate to this. Tried watching a murder show on Netflix and I swear half the content was just rehashing of the other half. Come to think of it, this is how most books are written - 10% value, -90% filler.
tfha 7y ago
Ads perform better when they stand out. It's easier to stand out by being terrible in some visible and unique way than by being excellent in some visible and unique way.
- gryfft 7y ago
  See: the 'Head-on' advertising strategy.
gnopgnip 7y ago
Even star trek had some cliffhangers and unanswered questions at the end of seasons
- kd5bjo 7y ago
  As I recall, the primary reason for end-of-season cliffhangers was for leverage in contract negotiations. Actors have a harder time arguing that they are indispensable when the viewers’ last shot was of their character in mortal peril.
8ytecoder 7y ago
Most ads can be categorised into two 1) Prescription pills and 2) The same GEICO-style-oddly-snarky-supposed-to-be-funny-but-not-really. It’s infuriating. HBO and Netflix are pioneers in this regard. I hope those two at least remain that way.
kd5bjo 7y ago
Cliff-hangers long predate modern television, and seem to be endemic to any serialized content. The term itself dates back to the late 1800s, and it’s use has been derided in every medium from books to radio to film to television. It also wasn’t a purely American thing. Go watch some of the old black-and-white Dr. Who episodes, for example; you’ll see some prime examples of cliffhanger- and recap-dominated television. The exception seems to be late-20th-century television shows, where the syndication system meant that episodes might be dropped or reordered arbitrarily by the local station. This made it difficult to impossible to have any kind of changing circumstances like an overarching plot except at big events like season breaks. Star Trek: TNG is a good example here; the interpersonal relationships between characters don’t really evolve very much, and when they do it’s part of a season-break spanning two-part story. Those reliably had every character in danger at the break to provide the studio leverage during contract negotiations. As the premium television channels started getting into producing their own shows, they didn’t have the problem of local affiliates reshuffling their schedule— their distribution model let shows have an overall plot, but they still add to be acceptable for viewers that expected to get a whole story each week. This gave us shows like Stargate SG-1 which still had very formulaic episodes, but also a continuity between them. You also started to have the national networks assert more control over the local stations which led to some successful attempts at shows with both series- and episode-long plot structures, like Babylon 5 & the West Wing. Vestiges of the old system remained for quite a while, though, and is a large part of why Firefly was never commercially successful— it was produced with continuity from episode to episode in mind, but the network aired them in a seemingly random order instead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffhanger https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffhanger
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Don't remember any catch up recaps ever appearing in the old B&W Dr Who, and I've seen plenty. Cliff hangers certainly. Yet those were memorable because they were relatively rare. In those days they were not used in every episode of every drama, or soap on British TV, far from it. Now they're everywhere, turned up to 11 to a point of self-parody like the Mitchell and Webb Gift Shop skit linked. Most episodes would reach something more akin to a convenient place to pause - more like the reel break and intermission in old movies. Reach a local conclusion for whatever episode story was playing out, pick it up with a new episode arc next week, alongside continuing the character development and series arcs. Interesting US network background I wasn't aware of. I'm fascinated by the idea networks would play series out of order, which on the face of it seems incredibly dumb. They're all the same length. Surely out of order would hurt the local station too, by losing viewers and potentially advertisers when stuff stops making sense?

foobarian 7y ago

The worst are the various documentary murder shows. There is not much to the story, so not only do they have cliff-hangers before commercial breaks, but they also recap the previous segment for like half the next segment. It's comical. It's like they heard the common talk-giving advice "tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them."

wvenable 7y ago
The Gift Shop Sketch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFtl2XXnUc I used to love watching Myth Busters but it became so much like that it was ridiculous. There was a time you could download torrents of Myth Busters episodes with all the recaps removed.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  I used to like those when they first appeared just as a new series catch up. Then it got utterly pointless and self-parody with weekly and break catch ups and coming soon teasers. Even news progs joined in. How to save 5+ minutes of programme making with real time repeats.
- robk 7y ago
  There are torrents of totally recut Mythbusters with all these crappy bits cut out. It's so much better
mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
Oh man I can relate to this. Tried watching a murder show on Netflix and I swear half the content was just rehashing of the other half. Come to think of it, this is how most books are written - 10% value, -90% filler.

tfha 7y ago

Ads perform better when they stand out. It's easier to stand out by being terrible in some visible and unique way than by being excellent in some visible and unique way.

gryfft 7y ago
See: the 'Head-on' advertising strategy.

gnopgnip 7y ago

Even star trek had some cliffhangers and unanswered questions at the end of seasons

kd5bjo 7y ago
As I recall, the primary reason for end-of-season cliffhangers was for leverage in contract negotiations. Actors have a harder time arguing that they are indispensable when the viewers’ last shot was of their character in mortal peril.

8ytecoder 7y ago

Most ads can be categorised into two 1) Prescription pills and 2) The same GEICO-style-oddly-snarky-supposed-to-be-funny-but-not-really. It’s infuriating. HBO and Netflix are pioneers in this regard. I hope those two at least remain that way.

kd5bjo 7y ago

Cliff-hangers long predate modern television, and seem to be endemic to any serialized content. The term itself dates back to the late 1800s, and it’s use has been derided in every medium from books to radio to film to television. It also wasn’t a purely American thing. Go watch some of the old black-and-white Dr. Who episodes, for example; you’ll see some prime examples of cliffhanger- and recap-dominated television. The exception seems to be late-20th-century television shows, where the syndication system meant that episodes might be dropped or reordered arbitrarily by the local station. This made it difficult to impossible to have any kind of changing circumstances like an overarching plot except at big events like season breaks. Star Trek: TNG is a good example here; the interpersonal relationships between characters don’t really evolve very much, and when they do it’s part of a season-break spanning two-part story. Those reliably had every character in danger at the break to provide the studio leverage during contract negotiations. As the premium television channels started getting into producing their own shows, they didn’t have the problem of local affiliates reshuffling their schedule— their distribution model let shows have an overall plot, but they still add to be acceptable for viewers that expected to get a whole story each week. This gave us shows like Stargate SG-1 which still had very formulaic episodes, but also a continuity between them. You also started to have the national networks assert more control over the local stations which led to some successful attempts at shows with both series- and episode-long plot structures, like Babylon 5 & the West Wing. Vestiges of the old system remained for quite a while, though, and is a large part of why Firefly was never commercially successful— it was produced with continuity from episode to episode in mind, but the network aired them in a seemingly random order instead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffhanger https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliffhanger

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Don't remember any catch up recaps ever appearing in the old B&W Dr Who, and I've seen plenty. Cliff hangers certainly. Yet those were memorable because they were relatively rare. In those days they were not used in every episode of every drama, or soap on British TV, far from it. Now they're everywhere, turned up to 11 to a point of self-parody like the Mitchell and Webb Gift Shop skit linked. Most episodes would reach something more akin to a convenient place to pause - more like the reel break and intermission in old movies. Reach a local conclusion for whatever episode story was playing out, pick it up with a new episode arc next week, alongside continuing the character development and series arcs. Interesting US network background I wasn't aware of. I'm fascinated by the idea networks would play series out of order, which on the face of it seems incredibly dumb. They're all the same length. Surely out of order would hurt the local station too, by losing viewers and potentially advertisers when stuff stops making sense?