8 ms·

> US series are too long. I generally agree with you. However, the main issue with Netflix is that they are cancelling shows without letting them wrap things u

> US series are too long. I generally agree with you. However, the main issue with Netflix is that they are cancelling shows without letting them wrap things up. Letting shows die on cliffhangers or when the cast and writers are finally getting into a groove. This does nothing but cause turmoil amongst the fan base and some of Netflix's most dedicated, paying customers. If they set out from the start to wrap things up in 2-3 seasons and let the writers plan for that, it would be fine. As of right now, they let writers build up massive plots in the first two seasons only to pull out the rug right when things are getting interesting.

michaelbrave 6y ago
100% this, even if they did a 1-2 episode wrap up on cancellation it would alleviate most of the problems.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  The problem with this is that the per-episode cost of a 1-2 show terminal microseason is much higher than the normal per episode cost, because you've got to pay people to come back for it and give up the opportunity for other work (or work around their replacement work, which also has costs.)
  - simias 6y ago
    That's a good point, but I wonder what's the cost of leaving shows completely unfinished in the long run. I know that I'm very unlikely to start watching a show if I know that it never reaches a satisfying conclusion. This in turn might create some "dead inventory" for Netflix, shows that people are reluctant to start watching because they're unfinished. Although there's cliffhanger and cliffhanger. Santa Clarita Diet for instance technically ends on a cliffhanger, but it's a last minute event that's supposed to introduce what they thought would be the next season. If you ignore the last scene basically every important plot thread up until that point is either wrapped up or at a status quo, so it's not such a terrible place to end a show. An other recent example is The Boys: while the show did get renewed for a third season the ending of season 2 could easily be a show final, you'd just have to get rid of the last couple of scenes introducing a cliffhanger for season 3. Conversely you have shows that clearly couldn't wrap their storyline in a satisfactory way before they were canceled. GLOW is unfortunately in this boat.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      >GLOW is unfortunately in this boat. Don't really agree. No, you wouldn't choose to wrap-up the show that way but it's a fairly natural break point.
      - simias 6y ago
        I agree that it's not the worst but it definitely leaves a lot of interpersonal drama unresolved. It makes the effective ending very bittersweet, which might indeed be fitting for this particular show.
    - saalweachter 6y ago
      I loved the ending of Farscape, even before the mini-series wrap-up. First, they wrapped up essentially every dangling plot-line. Everyone was safe, everyone was happy. Then in the last minute of the show, out of no where, an alien no one had ever seen before swoops in and disintegrates the main characters. "To be continued" flashes on the screen. The series was canceled before this episode aired/was finished, and that's how they chose to go out. Could have just cut the last 30 seconds off the episode and called it a wrap, but nope.
  - horsawlarway 6y ago
    An alternative solution here is to not cave and fund content in the old broadcast style of "run a show until it doesn't make money". You could instead make intentional decisions to fund miniseries and content with clearly defined "endings". I'd much rather have 6 episodes of a genuine story with a start/middle/end than two seasons of character development and a cliffhanger ending.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > You could instead make intentional decisions to fund miniseries and content with clearly defined "endings". Netflix funds plenty of original miniseries, movies, comedy specials, and other close-ended content. But the high-risk, high-reward, could-be-tentpole series get an understandably-large share of media attention.
    - newbie2020 6y ago
      I guess if someone were to donate enough money for this it would be possible
dragonwriter 6y ago
> However, the main issue with Netflix is that they are cancelling shows without letting them wrap things up. That's rather the norm for shows; cancellation is a business decision, not a story decision. And cliffhangers are often a tactic used to as an audience retention trick when the team behind a show knows it is at risk of not doing well enough to continue, so it's particularly common (Netflix aside) for it to be used at the end of a season that turns out to be a shows last.
- zepto 6y ago
  Yes, but it’s a norm from the broadcast era. I think the premise is that Netflix has an opportunity to do things differently, because a satisfying show on a streaming platform is not dependent on reruns to reach new fans.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Yes, but it’s a norm from the broadcast era. You think there is less competition and pressure to perform now than when there three broadcast networks and no real competing video services?
    - zepto 6y ago
      Why would you assume I think that when the rest of my comment is about the difference in valuing the long tail of streaming vs broadcast content?
  - accountinhn 6y ago
    Agree with this. They can atleast produce 2-3 episodes in a season and let the series come to conclusion. There is no need for doing 10+ episodes.
- toyg 6y ago
  I wouldn't think season-finale cliffhangers are a retention trick - they are just that, cliffhangers, something that any tv series does episode after episode. Usually it's the lack of cliffhanger at the end of a season that signals it's unlikely to come back. Showrunners want to wrap up stories if they can; when it doesn't happen, it's usually because the risk of cancellation was not clear to them until too late.
nelaboras 6y ago
This goes both ways. Writers clearly set things up that way in the hope this will put pressure for more episodes, but cliffhangers are just really bad writing done against rather than for the plot. Hopefully cliffhangers die thanks to streaming and the risk of non-renewal! That said, I like how Netflix handled sense8. The plot was clearly getting more and more absurd and season 2 had a massive cliffhanger for season 3. Then it was cancelled - but still they produced a final somewhat absurd but satisfying movie-length final episode that tied all lose ends. That was probably a contract term and not perfect, but it worked out better than a third season or no end at all.
- verall 6y ago
  Good cliffhangers work with the plot, using a limit like a weekly release schedule or break between seasons to lengthen tension. I would say most American television is really bad at this and likes to create fake tension between episodes that otherwise has no impact on the plot.
- ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
  No, cliffhangers are not bad writing. It's a literary technique like any other.
ijidak 6y ago
Agree. Netflix should follow the Korean drama model if they know shows need to stop after a season or two. Almost every korean drama is a one season story arc, and they're some of the most watched shows in the world.
- harrisonjackson 6y ago
  I'd still take a bad season two of some of them though :D
libraryatnight 6y ago
Sometimes I feel like Netflix takes an idea that was pitched as a movie or 1-3 episode mini series and asks the creators to stretch it longer. If they aren't going to commit to finishing these things, write in arcs that wrap up enough that a second season is possible but not horribly annoying if its not.
jarjoura 6y ago
Exactly, if you take a look at HBO, they always announce either from the start that the production is a "Limited Series", or pre-announce the year for a final season. This gives the writing team the bandwidth to properly conclude all of the main plot lines. Maybe this is because HBO values their content and hopes to syndicate it, whereas Netflix values their new subscriber counts.
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  OMG! A three season arc, where everyone knows at the beginning that that's the extent of the series, is perfect. Netflix has the perfect platform to put up the money to have great talent and production sign on for a short run series like this, much like the Brits do. I couldn't agree more!
- dumbfounder 6y ago
  Renewals are just as important to them. They are not one of those companies that relies on your apathy to keep subscribing.
- gregmac 6y ago
  > This gives the writing team the bandwidth to properly conclude all of the main plot lines. I remember watching Lost (the TV series) and getting into this around Season 3, and I remember hearing them saying they were "waiting to start telling the ending of the story". I found a recent article [1] talking it in more detail: > "There were all of these compelling mysteries and so we were saying, ‘We wanna have this stuff answered by the end of Season 1, this stuff answered by the end of Season 2, and then the show basically ends after about three years.’ That was the initial pitch, and they were not even hearing it. [....] they [ABC] were just like, ‘Do you understand how hard it is to make a show that people want to watch? And people like the show? So why would we end it? You don’t end shows that people are watching.’” You can't keep dragging out the mysteries forever, you have to eventually resolve something. You also can't just keep introducing new ones forever, because it doesn't make sense. You can't keep showing the same flashbacks, and you just can't introduce major new chunks of history to people's backstories that have never been brought up before. [1] https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/lost-ending-original-plans-damon-lindelof-interview/ https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/lost-ending-original-pla...

michaelbrave 6y ago

100% this, even if they did a 1-2 episode wrap up on cancellation it would alleviate most of the problems.

dragonwriter 6y ago
The problem with this is that the per-episode cost of a 1-2 show terminal microseason is much higher than the normal per episode cost, because you've got to pay people to come back for it and give up the opportunity for other work (or work around their replacement work, which also has costs.)
- simias 6y ago
  That's a good point, but I wonder what's the cost of leaving shows completely unfinished in the long run. I know that I'm very unlikely to start watching a show if I know that it never reaches a satisfying conclusion. This in turn might create some "dead inventory" for Netflix, shows that people are reluctant to start watching because they're unfinished. Although there's cliffhanger and cliffhanger. Santa Clarita Diet for instance technically ends on a cliffhanger, but it's a last minute event that's supposed to introduce what they thought would be the next season. If you ignore the last scene basically every important plot thread up until that point is either wrapped up or at a status quo, so it's not such a terrible place to end a show. An other recent example is The Boys: while the show did get renewed for a third season the ending of season 2 could easily be a show final, you'd just have to get rid of the last couple of scenes introducing a cliffhanger for season 3. Conversely you have shows that clearly couldn't wrap their storyline in a satisfactory way before they were canceled. GLOW is unfortunately in this boat.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >GLOW is unfortunately in this boat. Don't really agree. No, you wouldn't choose to wrap-up the show that way but it's a fairly natural break point.
    - simias 6y ago
      I agree that it's not the worst but it definitely leaves a lot of interpersonal drama unresolved. It makes the effective ending very bittersweet, which might indeed be fitting for this particular show.
  - saalweachter 6y ago
    I loved the ending of Farscape, even before the mini-series wrap-up. First, they wrapped up essentially every dangling plot-line. Everyone was safe, everyone was happy. Then in the last minute of the show, out of no where, an alien no one had ever seen before swoops in and disintegrates the main characters. "To be continued" flashes on the screen. The series was canceled before this episode aired/was finished, and that's how they chose to go out. Could have just cut the last 30 seconds off the episode and called it a wrap, but nope.
- horsawlarway 6y ago
  An alternative solution here is to not cave and fund content in the old broadcast style of "run a show until it doesn't make money". You could instead make intentional decisions to fund miniseries and content with clearly defined "endings". I'd much rather have 6 episodes of a genuine story with a start/middle/end than two seasons of character development and a cliffhanger ending.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > You could instead make intentional decisions to fund miniseries and content with clearly defined "endings". Netflix funds plenty of original miniseries, movies, comedy specials, and other close-ended content. But the high-risk, high-reward, could-be-tentpole series get an understandably-large share of media attention.
  - newbie2020 6y ago
    I guess if someone were to donate enough money for this it would be possible

dragonwriter 6y ago

> However, the main issue with Netflix is that they are cancelling shows without letting them wrap things up. That's rather the norm for shows; cancellation is a business decision, not a story decision. And cliffhangers are often a tactic used to as an audience retention trick when the team behind a show knows it is at risk of not doing well enough to continue, so it's particularly common (Netflix aside) for it to be used at the end of a season that turns out to be a shows last.

zepto 6y ago
Yes, but it’s a norm from the broadcast era. I think the premise is that Netflix has an opportunity to do things differently, because a satisfying show on a streaming platform is not dependent on reruns to reach new fans.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Yes, but it’s a norm from the broadcast era. You think there is less competition and pressure to perform now than when there three broadcast networks and no real competing video services?
  - zepto 6y ago
    Why would you assume I think that when the rest of my comment is about the difference in valuing the long tail of streaming vs broadcast content?
- accountinhn 6y ago
  Agree with this. They can atleast produce 2-3 episodes in a season and let the series come to conclusion. There is no need for doing 10+ episodes.
toyg 6y ago
I wouldn't think season-finale cliffhangers are a retention trick - they are just that, cliffhangers, something that any tv series does episode after episode. Usually it's the lack of cliffhanger at the end of a season that signals it's unlikely to come back. Showrunners want to wrap up stories if they can; when it doesn't happen, it's usually because the risk of cancellation was not clear to them until too late.

nelaboras 6y ago

This goes both ways. Writers clearly set things up that way in the hope this will put pressure for more episodes, but cliffhangers are just really bad writing done against rather than for the plot. Hopefully cliffhangers die thanks to streaming and the risk of non-renewal! That said, I like how Netflix handled sense8. The plot was clearly getting more and more absurd and season 2 had a massive cliffhanger for season 3. Then it was cancelled - but still they produced a final somewhat absurd but satisfying movie-length final episode that tied all lose ends. That was probably a contract term and not perfect, but it worked out better than a third season or no end at all.

verall 6y ago
Good cliffhangers work with the plot, using a limit like a weekly release schedule or break between seasons to lengthen tension. I would say most American television is really bad at this and likes to create fake tension between episodes that otherwise has no impact on the plot.
ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
No, cliffhangers are not bad writing. It's a literary technique like any other.

ijidak 6y ago

Agree. Netflix should follow the Korean drama model if they know shows need to stop after a season or two. Almost every korean drama is a one season story arc, and they're some of the most watched shows in the world.

harrisonjackson 6y ago
I'd still take a bad season two of some of them though :D

libraryatnight 6y ago

Sometimes I feel like Netflix takes an idea that was pitched as a movie or 1-3 episode mini series and asks the creators to stretch it longer. If they aren't going to commit to finishing these things, write in arcs that wrap up enough that a second season is possible but not horribly annoying if its not.

jarjoura 6y ago

Exactly, if you take a look at HBO, they always announce either from the start that the production is a "Limited Series", or pre-announce the year for a final season. This gives the writing team the bandwidth to properly conclude all of the main plot lines. Maybe this is because HBO values their content and hopes to syndicate it, whereas Netflix values their new subscriber counts.

UnpossibleJim 6y ago
OMG! A three season arc, where everyone knows at the beginning that that's the extent of the series, is perfect. Netflix has the perfect platform to put up the money to have great talent and production sign on for a short run series like this, much like the Brits do. I couldn't agree more!
dumbfounder 6y ago
Renewals are just as important to them. They are not one of those companies that relies on your apathy to keep subscribing.
gregmac 6y ago
> This gives the writing team the bandwidth to properly conclude all of the main plot lines. I remember watching Lost (the TV series) and getting into this around Season 3, and I remember hearing them saying they were "waiting to start telling the ending of the story". I found a recent article [1] talking it in more detail: > "There were all of these compelling mysteries and so we were saying, ‘We wanna have this stuff answered by the end of Season 1, this stuff answered by the end of Season 2, and then the show basically ends after about three years.’ That was the initial pitch, and they were not even hearing it. [....] they [ABC] were just like, ‘Do you understand how hard it is to make a show that people want to watch? And people like the show? So why would we end it? You don’t end shows that people are watching.’” You can't keep dragging out the mysteries forever, you have to eventually resolve something. You also can't just keep introducing new ones forever, because it doesn't make sense. You can't keep showing the same flashbacks, and you just can't introduce major new chunks of history to people's backstories that have never been brought up before. [1] https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/lost-ending-original-plans-damon-lindelof-interview/ https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/lost-ending-original-pla...