5 ms·

TV shows changed completely in the streaming age it seems. These days they really are just super long movies with glacial pacing to keep users subscribed.

sfn42 10mo ago
As opposed to the House model where every episode is exactly the same with some superficial differences? I like the long movie format, lots of good shows to watch. Movies feel too short to properly tell a story. It's just like a few highlights hastily shown and then it's over.
- KeplerBoy 10mo ago
  Sure, it's completely different from procedural comedic shows like House and there's some great shows to watch! Still, sometimes it feels like the writers weren't granted enough time to write a shorter script. Brevity isn't exactly incentivized by the business model.
- mnky9800n 10mo ago
  I feel like there are plenty of examples of movies that tell a good story. I think the reason people like long form television over movies is a movie requires an emotional commitment that it will end. But there’s always another episode of television.
  - account42 9mo ago
    The flip side is that with most serialized television stories not even the writers know where the story will go so most arcs end up being brushed under the rug while the viewers are distracted with new promises that ultimately end up being hot air.
- atq2119 10mo ago
  A lot of this is personal preference, but I still feel like the most memorable shows tend to be the ones that have a bit of both. Season-long stories, but also episodes that can stand on their own. In a show like Stranger Things, almost none of the episodes are individually memorable or watchable on their own. They depend too much on the surrounding episodes. Compare to e.g. Strange New Worlds, which tells large stories over the course of a season, but each episode is also a self-contained story. Which in turn allows for more variety and an overall richer experience, since you can have individual episodes experiment with wacky deviations from the norm of the show. Not all of those experiments will land for everybody (musical episodes tend to be quite divisive, for example), but there is a density to the experience that a lot of modern TV lacks.
  - devilbunny 9mo ago
    The original Law & Order did a masterful job of this. Each episode (with very few exceptions) is self-contained, but deeper themes and character development run through them in long (often multi-season) arcs to reward the long-term viewer. But there was rarely more than one episode per season that was solely for the long-term viewer.
VBprogrammer 10mo ago
You know when something doesn't annoy you until someone points it out? It's so obvious in hindsight. Shows like the Big Bang theory, House and Scrubs I very rarely caught two episodes consecutively (and when I did they were on some release schedule so you'd forgotten half of the plot by next week). But they are all practically self contained with only the thread of a longer term narrative being woven between them. It's doubtful that any of these netflix series you could catch one random episode and feel comfortable that you understand what's going on. Perhaps worse is the recent trend for mini-series which are almost exactly how you describe - just a film without half of it being left on the cutting room floor.
- mcv 10mo ago
  It's a different medium, and it's intentional. And not even new either. The Singing Detective, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus did the same thing decades ago. Apparently they were successful enough that everybody does it now.
- simonjgreen 10mo ago
  I think this is less “Netflix vs old TV” and more episodic vs serialised, and the serialised form definitely isn’t new. Buffy is a great example: plenty of monster of the week episodes, but also season long arcs and character progression that rewarded continuity. The X-Files deliberately ran two tracks in parallel: standalone cases plus the mythology episodes. Lost was essentially built around long arcs and cliffhangers, it just had to make that work on a weekly broadcast cadence. What’s changed is the delivery mechanism, not the existence of serialisation. When your audience gets one episode a week, with mid-season breaks, schedule slips, and multi-year gaps between seasons, writers have to fight a constant battle to re-establish context and keep casual viewers from falling off. That’s why even heavily serialised shows from that era often kept an episodic spine. It’s a retention strategy as much as a creative choice. Streaming and especially season drops flip that constraint. When episodes are on demand and many viewers watch them close together, the time between chapters shrinks from weeks to minutes. That makes it much easier to sustain dense long-form narrative, assume recent recall, and let the story behave more like a novel than a syndicated procedural. So the pattern isn’t new. On demand distribution just finally makes the serialised approach work as reliably at scale as it always wanted to.
vjk800 10mo ago
I'm fine with this. I always wished regular movies were much longer. I wish lord of the rings movies included all the songs and poems and characters from the book and lasted like 7 hours each.
- account42 9mo ago
  I would be fine with it of the stories were fully developed before the first episode is released. Unfortunately this usually isn't the case and instead you end up with lots of "cool" story arcs that ultimately go nowhere satisfying.
dotancohen 10mo ago
We used to call that a soap opera. Maybe today we should call it a couch opera.
- chuckadams 9mo ago
  Rod Serling derogatorily coined the term "Soap Opera" because those also pioneered the ad break, typically for products aimed at housewives, e.g. soap.
  - dotancohen 9mo ago
    What advertisements or other social unwanteds do these new operas promote? I propose Apathy Opera
  - DerekL 9mo ago
    The term soap opera dates to 1938. There’s no way that Rod Serling coined the term.
bayarearefugee 9mo ago
Even as an older person, I prefer the new format, with the exception of the now common 2-3 year gaps between seasons. That part of it, while I know the reasons given for it, is becoming increasingly annoying/frustrating.
- Fr0styMatt88 9mo ago
  I seem to remember that it was The X-Files that first pioneered the “every episode is a mini-movie” and it showed in the production at the time compared to other stuff. Could be mis-remembering though, when I think about early anthologies like Twilight Zone or Freddy’s Nightmares.

sfn42 10mo ago

As opposed to the House model where every episode is exactly the same with some superficial differences? I like the long movie format, lots of good shows to watch. Movies feel too short to properly tell a story. It's just like a few highlights hastily shown and then it's over.

KeplerBoy 10mo ago
Sure, it's completely different from procedural comedic shows like House and there's some great shows to watch! Still, sometimes it feels like the writers weren't granted enough time to write a shorter script. Brevity isn't exactly incentivized by the business model.
mnky9800n 10mo ago
I feel like there are plenty of examples of movies that tell a good story. I think the reason people like long form television over movies is a movie requires an emotional commitment that it will end. But there’s always another episode of television.
- account42 9mo ago
  The flip side is that with most serialized television stories not even the writers know where the story will go so most arcs end up being brushed under the rug while the viewers are distracted with new promises that ultimately end up being hot air.
atq2119 10mo ago
A lot of this is personal preference, but I still feel like the most memorable shows tend to be the ones that have a bit of both. Season-long stories, but also episodes that can stand on their own. In a show like Stranger Things, almost none of the episodes are individually memorable or watchable on their own. They depend too much on the surrounding episodes. Compare to e.g. Strange New Worlds, which tells large stories over the course of a season, but each episode is also a self-contained story. Which in turn allows for more variety and an overall richer experience, since you can have individual episodes experiment with wacky deviations from the norm of the show. Not all of those experiments will land for everybody (musical episodes tend to be quite divisive, for example), but there is a density to the experience that a lot of modern TV lacks.
- devilbunny 9mo ago
  The original Law & Order did a masterful job of this. Each episode (with very few exceptions) is self-contained, but deeper themes and character development run through them in long (often multi-season) arcs to reward the long-term viewer. But there was rarely more than one episode per season that was solely for the long-term viewer.

VBprogrammer 10mo ago

You know when something doesn't annoy you until someone points it out? It's so obvious in hindsight. Shows like the Big Bang theory, House and Scrubs I very rarely caught two episodes consecutively (and when I did they were on some release schedule so you'd forgotten half of the plot by next week). But they are all practically self contained with only the thread of a longer term narrative being woven between them. It's doubtful that any of these netflix series you could catch one random episode and feel comfortable that you understand what's going on. Perhaps worse is the recent trend for mini-series which are almost exactly how you describe - just a film without half of it being left on the cutting room floor.

mcv 10mo ago
It's a different medium, and it's intentional. And not even new either. The Singing Detective, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus did the same thing decades ago. Apparently they were successful enough that everybody does it now.
simonjgreen 10mo ago
I think this is less “Netflix vs old TV” and more episodic vs serialised, and the serialised form definitely isn’t new. Buffy is a great example: plenty of monster of the week episodes, but also season long arcs and character progression that rewarded continuity. The X-Files deliberately ran two tracks in parallel: standalone cases plus the mythology episodes. Lost was essentially built around long arcs and cliffhangers, it just had to make that work on a weekly broadcast cadence. What’s changed is the delivery mechanism, not the existence of serialisation. When your audience gets one episode a week, with mid-season breaks, schedule slips, and multi-year gaps between seasons, writers have to fight a constant battle to re-establish context and keep casual viewers from falling off. That’s why even heavily serialised shows from that era often kept an episodic spine. It’s a retention strategy as much as a creative choice. Streaming and especially season drops flip that constraint. When episodes are on demand and many viewers watch them close together, the time between chapters shrinks from weeks to minutes. That makes it much easier to sustain dense long-form narrative, assume recent recall, and let the story behave more like a novel than a syndicated procedural. So the pattern isn’t new. On demand distribution just finally makes the serialised approach work as reliably at scale as it always wanted to.

vjk800 10mo ago

I'm fine with this. I always wished regular movies were much longer. I wish lord of the rings movies included all the songs and poems and characters from the book and lasted like 7 hours each.

account42 9mo ago
I would be fine with it of the stories were fully developed before the first episode is released. Unfortunately this usually isn't the case and instead you end up with lots of "cool" story arcs that ultimately go nowhere satisfying.

dotancohen 10mo ago

We used to call that a soap opera. Maybe today we should call it a couch opera.

chuckadams 9mo ago
Rod Serling derogatorily coined the term "Soap Opera" because those also pioneered the ad break, typically for products aimed at housewives, e.g. soap.
- dotancohen 9mo ago
  What advertisements or other social unwanteds do these new operas promote? I propose Apathy Opera
- DerekL 9mo ago
  The term soap opera dates to 1938. There’s no way that Rod Serling coined the term.

bayarearefugee 9mo ago

Even as an older person, I prefer the new format, with the exception of the now common 2-3 year gaps between seasons. That part of it, while I know the reasons given for it, is becoming increasingly annoying/frustrating.

Fr0styMatt88 9mo ago
I seem to remember that it was The X-Files that first pioneered the “every episode is a mini-movie” and it showed in the production at the time compared to other stuff. Could be mis-remembering though, when I think about early anthologies like Twilight Zone or Freddy’s Nightmares.