I think there are two models to Netflix. One is a carryover from its DVD days, a chance to catchup on or rewatch older series. “Suits” comes to mind. Very easy to plow through a season. On that level, Netflix was a pioneer as a streamer and is a model that the platforms with deep catalogs all use.
But its other model, as content creators, you’re spot on. Its episodic TV is junk, but I find Netflix does slightly better on original movies. (But original movies on streamers is a whole other dissertation I suppose.)
Such a great set of observations. Senior execs in just about every sphere of work seem to be making the shallowest, crassest, most manipulative decisions. And they've enshittified things to the point where things that were far from broken have become so broke they're almost useless.
You can always see how they've convinced themselves "this" will drive up value next year, but you can also see how "this" is going to slow value the year after that. Eventually, you end up with a platform where habit makes people loyal rather than what's on the platform. Netflix is now so big it can't fail...allegedly.
Such an interesting analysis. I hadn't thought that binge-watching means that viewers don't develop the deep and long relationship with a series, but you're so right. As a viewer, I don't want to have to wait for the next episode, I want it available when I need it... but a few weeks later I'll have forgotten my attachment to the characters and world. Even for a show I was absolutely committed to.
The 'second-screen' syndrome is also interesting. I have the feeling that some of these shows are written with the expectation that the audience will be on social media at the same time as they're watching. There are some dumb OMG type of scenes that seem to have been included just to provoke a tweet (other platforms are also available). That drives me mad. It doesn't respect the material or the viewer.
And the execs refuse to believe it? Absolutely. It's the same in book publishing. Publishers at the big industry conferences will make speeches about originality and quality. Meanwhile the writers who can create high quality work are not signed- usually because a publishing committee decides they don't tick enough fashionable boxes because they're too original. Execs in the arts are not themselves artists, nor are they terribly discerning readers or viewers.
Gatekeepers always believe they know their audience better than the audience knows themselves. Sometimes it's true, but most of the time it's not. It's why execs always seem so shocked when new trends appear out of nowhere as if by magic. Of course, the trend is just an expression of the audience's desperation because the execs had been fixated for so long on producing what worked last year - which itself was also chasing the success of a previous year or years.
This is the inevitable consequence of not only thinking your distribution model is the best and only one for "content", but for arrogantly forcing your production associates to follow narrative and characterization mandates that do not benefit them in any fashion. As the O'Jays once sang, you got to give the people what they WANT to stay in business, but this organization would rather only give Silicon Valley and Wall Street what THEY want...
I don't think that's wholly true, but only because the studios remained independent and were allowed to function as such until the early 2000s. By the 90s, they started merging various media assets, turning themselves into ugly behemoths. By the time streamers came along, everything was about Wall Street growth. Not saying you're wrong, just that the audience mattered in a different way until the 2000s.
Definitely. The difference was between the ‘60s and ‘80s the larger companies controlling studios like Gulf & Western and Coca-Cola didn’t understand how the entertainment business worked, and they just told the people at the studios, “Do you want you want to do, so long as it makes us some money.” But from the ‘90s onward the money people started acting like they knew the business better than the people that actually did and a lot more financial head-butting resulted. Netflix is a product of this era of Hollywood and shows it.
Dammit. I took the bait on The Boroughs. I hadn’t heard that they canceled it. Well that’s the last Netflix series I will consider before it has 3 seasons out.
Every time I see a new Netflix series I'm excited by the idea of, I see the MAD MAX: FURY ROAD meme in my head - the one of Tom Hardy wagging a finger, "That's a trap."
Or the joy that comes from taking your time. If Netflix were an e-book company, they’d be arguing the best way to enjoy your next book is listening to it at double speed while you check Instagram.
Yeah, there is a magic in waiting, in not being able to instantly gratify yourself, in desire. This emotion colors the whole experience, it intensifies it, and makes “must-see TV” out of even okay shows for many people. Remove it, and all you have left is the show you consume and forget. What you’re hilariously describing here is almost as memorable as the show itself.
I got a bit carried away there, but I use comments sometimes to do some actual writing. Sometimes they are appreciated, but usually, as with most creative writing, summarily ignored. Thanks for using "hilariously" in that line. :-)
As a French TV writer, I feel this in my bones and also in my very unglamorous sofa life, where I finally finish breastfeeding, put the kids to bed, and cannot remember what happened in season one anymore. Weekly episodes may look old-fashioned from a tech deck, but they are very practical for human brains, especially tired ones.
Exactly. Appointment viewing is nice in theory, but most people are really damn tired in the 21st century. Work-life balance is better in France, but I expect it's suffering like it is everywhere else, too. We have so much going on, struggling to survive the apocalypse, trying to be better parents than ours every tried to be, and so on...that there's so little left when we sit down in front of the TV. We want a very unglamorous sofa life. We want comfort food. Not that it shouldn't challenge us, or do interesting things. But it shouldn't be complicated, difficult, or painful.
Terrific analysis. Do you think they’ll back off the season drop strategy? That’s the easiest problem to fix quickly and with low cost. I always thought the weird, long delays between seasons was an artifact of COVID. That’s always annoyed me, but I never connected the practice to a flawed business model. I actually bought some Netflix stock last week, kind of a bottom feeding trade. I always feel a little used by big tach, now I have a new way to feel used. Your piece may influence my management of that position. Cole Haddon, writer/invesrment advisor?
I would not trust me for financial advice, Tim. I think I unloaded every stock I had a week before epic spikes. I think my low point was selling my Tesla stock for good right before it gained like 30% in one week.
As for Netflix, I don’t think they will. I think they’re as committed as the members of the Peoples Temple were when they lined up to collect their cups of Flavor Aid. The whole company is predicated on binging. It’s their identity. I’m not sure it’ll ever fully come back to bite them in the ass either. They keep making money. But I do think that as they bleed loyalty, for these reasons, they’ll be forced to innovate in other ways to keep growing. It all feels very desperate to me when the solution is, as I see it, very obvious. Stop trying to double your size faster than the human population does. Make sure every customer you earn never feels the need to leave. That’s a solid, long-term growth model…except for tech companies.
But they've made massive changes to their business model in recent years. Most notably, an ads tier and live broadcasts. They wouldn't have been caught dead doing those things ten years ago. This makes me think they may start introducing weekly release patterns soon. They've dabbled in it with the delays on release of Stranger Things episodes, right? But that was random and tied more to the event of the finale. They need the weekly drop to really build CONNECTION with the audience. We'll see if they go there. Personally, I think they need a more reasonably priced no-ads tier. I HATE commercials but I'm putting up with them on pretty much every one of my subscriptions because I don't think one streamer alone is worth $15-$20/month. :0
There’s still a lot of great films and TV on there, but they’re being damaged by the new approach. I also want to point out that network television managed to have both — to use your words — “quality” and “low quality” shows on for years. Something for everyone. When a network misunderstood that balance, their overall ratings slumped. When they got it right, such as NBC in the 90s, they dominated. My point is: this wouldn’t have been a mystery 25 years ago. Today, we act like it is.
Well, the last thing I would want is to spend my lie editing a podcast episode about Netflix. Writing about it is depressing enough. Ha! I checked out the article, Rick, but I just don’t think it’s as complicated as you describe it. Not that all your points are all very valid to many aspects of the streaming world and what is going on at Netflix, but we’e discussing second season slumps and that’s an experiential issue. The TV experience at Netflix is arguably the worst in the streaming industry. I say “arguably”, but it really is. You address that in the experience of overseas viewers, but while it’s true they produce shorter seasons themselves, the majority of their television has always originated from the US. There isn’t a person alive over 35 who didn’t grow up watching 20+ episode seasons as a weekly part of their lives as local TV supplemented that. Nobody here in Australia talk about their Aussie shows from the 90s like “FRIENDS”, I mean. They talk about “FRIENDS”. British shows are sacred, but they all watch/ed “ER” and “SEINFELD” and “BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER” and “GREY’S ANATOMY”. That experience is what I’m writing about here, not the business side of things. The Netflix experience prevents a deep and meaningful TV experience, in my opinion. That’s not the case with all streamers or at least all the time at all streamers. Again, everything you wrote is correct, but I’d suggest it explains many other aspects of Netflix’s struggles and not necessarily this one. Do you know if there is any data on viewer satisfaction across streamers, audience retention in general, and audience loyalty between seasons? I guess what I’m asking is, data that gets at why, for example, other streamers have abandoned bingeing and how that might be impacting their success?
Conversely, can you just make some high quality 1 season limited series and not try and shoehorn in a second or third series for a show that was perfectly formed and complete in 1 season?
On a side note, ditto for SF and Fantasy authors.. Just right a f*cking standalone novel, not everything needs to be a goddamned trilogy or "saga" or "cycle"
I've turned against limited series myself. I like the idea of them, but I don't watch them anymore with few exceptions. I want characters I can reliably spend time with. My life doesn't have room for anything but that right now. That said, I absolutely hear your point.
i’m a fan of the “idea” of limited series, if only because there’s so much other great entertainment out there i want to check out – that said, limited series need to be designed as an event and released on a weekly schedule – much like traditional broadcast tv did, back in the day
while not really in the “event” category, i was happy enough to enjoy the one season of *The Boroughs* and move on
speaking of limited series – one of the masters of the form, Mike Flanagan (Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, Fall of the House of Usher etc) is back this year with his take on King’s Carrie
Excellent point about series. Suddenly everything has to be series, or series plural in the TV world. Often a great TV show gets stretched beyond anything the originators ever wanted to do. I always thought Buffy did a brilliant job creating series that had a beginning, middle and end, and then coming back with an even better series the next time around.
And novels!! I write what are now called standalones, a word that didn't really exist a few years ago. Suddenly I have become an oddity in the writing world because everyone else is pushing out sequel after sequel. And it's all genres, not just fantasy and SF.
Agreed. If a writer can't tell a satisfying story in 6-10 episodes (the Von Stroheim Length) then they don't know their craft. Aristotle stipulated a beginning, a middle, and an end -- not a beginning, a middle, a middle, and another damned middle. Very occasionally a show does something genuinely fresh with a new season, but in nine cases out of ten the extra seasons exist only to keep milking cash out of the thing by rehashing the first story arc again and again. Eventually it's impossible to remember why we even liked the show to begin with. Nowadays I'll only watch limited series. And I totally agree with you about SF/fantasy sagas too!
I don't think that's true about 9 out of 10 times. Almost every great TV series I can think of is multi-season. Very few limited series have had any long-term impact on pop culture or changed how TV is made either. They're great, don't get me wrong. But they vanish from our minds more times than not. All that said, a fun debate I would have all the time with producers is: "Why does this have to be a limited series? It would be much more satisfying as a film." Inevitably, I lost the argument because they thought there was more money to be made from the limited series. It always comes down to money.
It's curious that most people don't remember a limited series so vividly, even if they really enjoyed it, and yet they can read what is nowadays called a "standalone" novel and it stays with them for life.
I don't have a good explanation for that, though I think it's worth looping in the impact a movie of the week or event limited series had on network TV. "Roots", "North and South", and so on in the States. In the UK, there are similar event series given their role as annual holiday features, for example. These "events" - to stick with that term - united large numbers of audiences. Families often watched them together. They reached multiple generations. I'm not sure if a limited series on Netflix or Amazon or anywhere else today could make that impact, even though, arguably, they're reaching more people. I just don't think it's about how many people who are watching, but how many people who are watching together in some way or another that makes any of these events cultural moments. I will keep coming back to Occam's Razor in this argument, the simplest explanation being we used to do X in this way and the result was dramatically different. Now we do Y in a completely different way and everyone keeps asking, "Why don't people care the same way?" It's not YouTube, no matter how many times they throw that excuse out.
I wonder if the key difference is synchronous versus asynchronous?
Historically with broadcast TV, every watched the show at the same time then talked about it at work the next day, back in the days when people went to the office, and had time to jawbone around the water cooler. So, totally synchronous, with a little bit of time shifting at the margins once recording vcrs were released.
Binge watching a full series drop = totally asynchronous.
Streaming a weekly drop = still async but closer to synchronous because if you really like the show you're far more likely to watch the episode on the day of release. And the weekly schedule gives time for word-of-mouth to spread, people to binge the backlog, and then "sync up" on the weekly releases.
I think this is one of the issues that led to the rest of streamers abandoning the binge model. Shows have no time to build up a, as you put it, synchronous community. It'll never be like watching "MASH" or "FRIENDS" again, but that "we're watching it at least in the same week" means enthusiasm can collectively build over time and lead others to tune in too. This just happened to me with "WIDOW'S BAY" (which I loved). After six weeks of seeing everyone I know collectively shout about it, I felt I'd missed out and quickly caught up so I could at least watch the finale with everyone else and geek out about it together. Had the series been dropped in its entirety, most people would've reacted to the whole thing in the first week or two, by week five you'd have the sense if there was going to be a second season, and by week six, I would've already forgotten all the praise from those first two weeks because praise for something else would've supplanted it. TV and TV success is just not a lonely experience. It never has been and it never will be. The same way radio, before it went extinct, was a collective experience before it. We listened together and that mattered.
The Boroughs was fun (in my head canon it was a story about Doc Ock in retirement) but s2 would just have been a reheated version of s1, so I don't think we missed anything there.
Our policy is to subscribe to Netflix, Apple, HBO, whoever, then binge on the shows we like, then cancel the sub and cycle to the next streamer, returning when each has built up enough shows we want to see. I'd happily pay them on a per-show basis rather than by subscription.
yeah, it’s become part of the conversation – you mention a show you enjoyed and are asked where you watched it – quite often the person will then reply, “oh, we’re not with that streamer at the moment, but i’ll make a note to check it out when we go back to them” – people are creating their own viewing schedules independent of the streamers’ advertising and promotions
Yeah, I talk a lot about this in that article I linked to about whether peak TV helped destroy our reality. We're now longer watching things as a community. We're little islands who wave to each other from time to time. And that's pretty damn devastating.
Sometimes bingeing a show helps you keep up with the plot points, particularly when the show has a lot of characters and sub-plots. For example, I watched "Game of Thrones" twice: once when it was new content on HBO, with episodes released weekly with months to a year between seasons, and one time when I binged all the content consecutively from the first season to the last. I had a much better experience with the show the second time, because I was able to keep up with who was who and what was happening. Now, this might be the exception to the rule, but I also felt this way about "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" which isn't terribly complex but still worked better, IMO, when viewed consecutively from beginning to end.
Anyway, perhaps I'm an anomaly, but I much prefer having access to all the shows at one time. When you have a business model based on subscriptions and not ads, does it matter?
But you can binge a show after it’s aired in its entirety. You know, watch it in real time with the rest of the world and then rewatch it at the end of the season.
Sure. But if the initial experience is disjointed, you miss so much. The momentum gets halted. I'm currently watching "Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed" on Apple which is excellent. I think I would love it even more if the pace wasn't interrupted.
I'm sure that's your experience, but it's not most people's and that's why Apple skipped uploaded whole series at a time. The long-term result of that experience is very different than one where you have to wait, where you have to share the same experience with others, where your interest remains in a non-stop piqued state. But again, if you favor that experience, you can also just wait two months and binge the whole thing. If streaming does anything, it gives you the freedom to watch how you like.
I think there are two models to Netflix. One is a carryover from its DVD days, a chance to catchup on or rewatch older series. “Suits” comes to mind. Very easy to plow through a season. On that level, Netflix was a pioneer as a streamer and is a model that the platforms with deep catalogs all use.
But its other model, as content creators, you’re spot on. Its episodic TV is junk, but I find Netflix does slightly better on original movies. (But original movies on streamers is a whole other dissertation I suppose.)
Such a great set of observations. Senior execs in just about every sphere of work seem to be making the shallowest, crassest, most manipulative decisions. And they've enshittified things to the point where things that were far from broken have become so broke they're almost useless.
You can always see how they've convinced themselves "this" will drive up value next year, but you can also see how "this" is going to slow value the year after that. Eventually, you end up with a platform where habit makes people loyal rather than what's on the platform. Netflix is now so big it can't fail...allegedly.
All of this is true
Absolute truth. If they don't get it they deserve to fail.
Such an interesting analysis. I hadn't thought that binge-watching means that viewers don't develop the deep and long relationship with a series, but you're so right. As a viewer, I don't want to have to wait for the next episode, I want it available when I need it... but a few weeks later I'll have forgotten my attachment to the characters and world. Even for a show I was absolutely committed to.
The 'second-screen' syndrome is also interesting. I have the feeling that some of these shows are written with the expectation that the audience will be on social media at the same time as they're watching. There are some dumb OMG type of scenes that seem to have been included just to provoke a tweet (other platforms are also available). That drives me mad. It doesn't respect the material or the viewer.
And the execs refuse to believe it? Absolutely. It's the same in book publishing. Publishers at the big industry conferences will make speeches about originality and quality. Meanwhile the writers who can create high quality work are not signed- usually because a publishing committee decides they don't tick enough fashionable boxes because they're too original. Execs in the arts are not themselves artists, nor are they terribly discerning readers or viewers.
Gatekeepers always believe they know their audience better than the audience knows themselves. Sometimes it's true, but most of the time it's not. It's why execs always seem so shocked when new trends appear out of nowhere as if by magic. Of course, the trend is just an expression of the audience's desperation because the execs had been fixated for so long on producing what worked last year - which itself was also chasing the success of a previous year or years.
This is the inevitable consequence of not only thinking your distribution model is the best and only one for "content", but for arrogantly forcing your production associates to follow narrative and characterization mandates that do not benefit them in any fashion. As the O'Jays once sang, you got to give the people what they WANT to stay in business, but this organization would rather only give Silicon Valley and Wall Street what THEY want...
This is a great point. Netflix's audience isn't the people at home. It's Wall Steet.
Yes. But it’s been Hollywood’s in general ever since the conglomerates staged coups to take over the studios in the ‘60s and ‘70s…
I don't think that's wholly true, but only because the studios remained independent and were allowed to function as such until the early 2000s. By the 90s, they started merging various media assets, turning themselves into ugly behemoths. By the time streamers came along, everything was about Wall Street growth. Not saying you're wrong, just that the audience mattered in a different way until the 2000s.
Definitely. The difference was between the ‘60s and ‘80s the larger companies controlling studios like Gulf & Western and Coca-Cola didn’t understand how the entertainment business worked, and they just told the people at the studios, “Do you want you want to do, so long as it makes us some money.” But from the ‘90s onward the money people started acting like they knew the business better than the people that actually did and a lot more financial head-butting resulted. Netflix is a product of this era of Hollywood and shows it.
Dammit. I took the bait on The Boroughs. I hadn’t heard that they canceled it. Well that’s the last Netflix series I will consider before it has 3 seasons out.
Every time I see a new Netflix series I'm excited by the idea of, I see the MAD MAX: FURY ROAD meme in my head - the one of Tom Hardy wagging a finger, "That's a trap."
Sadly I must admit that however I try to resist, I will likely fall for future traps if they have bait like the cast of The Boroughs.
This is so true. They don't understand the relationship between human and story, or the time taken to absorb the story into the subconscious.
Or the joy that comes from taking your time. If Netflix were an e-book company, they’d be arguing the best way to enjoy your next book is listening to it at double speed while you check Instagram.
I must say that I found the anticipation for Thursday nights and the new episode of The Pitt to be EXHILARATING.
I was 25 again, desperate for the next chapter of E.R. or NYPD BLUE.
My hair grew back.
My wife and I started having noontime romps like lustful wildcats.
I would go to the gym just to do naked knuckle push-ups on the locker room floor.
I would get punch drunk as I attempted to count the number of crow's feet on Noah Wyle's cheeks that seemed to grow exponentially week to week.
As I stumbled into rooms, I would look for aid from the touchstone, the stabilizing force that was Charge Nurse Dana Evans.
Oh Scott Gemmill, John Wells and HBO Max, you beautiful bastards, may I say thank you all for your service (not you, Zaslav).
Yeah, there is a magic in waiting, in not being able to instantly gratify yourself, in desire. This emotion colors the whole experience, it intensifies it, and makes “must-see TV” out of even okay shows for many people. Remove it, and all you have left is the show you consume and forget. What you’re hilariously describing here is almost as memorable as the show itself.
I got a bit carried away there, but I use comments sometimes to do some actual writing. Sometimes they are appreciated, but usually, as with most creative writing, summarily ignored. Thanks for using "hilariously" in that line. :-)
I appreciated the comment, truly.
As a French TV writer, I feel this in my bones and also in my very unglamorous sofa life, where I finally finish breastfeeding, put the kids to bed, and cannot remember what happened in season one anymore. Weekly episodes may look old-fashioned from a tech deck, but they are very practical for human brains, especially tired ones.
Exactly. Appointment viewing is nice in theory, but most people are really damn tired in the 21st century. Work-life balance is better in France, but I expect it's suffering like it is everywhere else, too. We have so much going on, struggling to survive the apocalypse, trying to be better parents than ours every tried to be, and so on...that there's so little left when we sit down in front of the TV. We want a very unglamorous sofa life. We want comfort food. Not that it shouldn't challenge us, or do interesting things. But it shouldn't be complicated, difficult, or painful.
Terrific analysis. Do you think they’ll back off the season drop strategy? That’s the easiest problem to fix quickly and with low cost. I always thought the weird, long delays between seasons was an artifact of COVID. That’s always annoyed me, but I never connected the practice to a flawed business model. I actually bought some Netflix stock last week, kind of a bottom feeding trade. I always feel a little used by big tach, now I have a new way to feel used. Your piece may influence my management of that position. Cole Haddon, writer/invesrment advisor?
I would not trust me for financial advice, Tim. I think I unloaded every stock I had a week before epic spikes. I think my low point was selling my Tesla stock for good right before it gained like 30% in one week.
As for Netflix, I don’t think they will. I think they’re as committed as the members of the Peoples Temple were when they lined up to collect their cups of Flavor Aid. The whole company is predicated on binging. It’s their identity. I’m not sure it’ll ever fully come back to bite them in the ass either. They keep making money. But I do think that as they bleed loyalty, for these reasons, they’ll be forced to innovate in other ways to keep growing. It all feels very desperate to me when the solution is, as I see it, very obvious. Stop trying to double your size faster than the human population does. Make sure every customer you earn never feels the need to leave. That’s a solid, long-term growth model…except for tech companies.
But they've made massive changes to their business model in recent years. Most notably, an ads tier and live broadcasts. They wouldn't have been caught dead doing those things ten years ago. This makes me think they may start introducing weekly release patterns soon. They've dabbled in it with the delays on release of Stranger Things episodes, right? But that was random and tied more to the event of the finale. They need the weekly drop to really build CONNECTION with the audience. We'll see if they go there. Personally, I think they need a more reasonably priced no-ads tier. I HATE commercials but I'm putting up with them on pretty much every one of my subscriptions because I don't think one streamer alone is worth $15-$20/month. :0
I really struggle to believe they'll throw out the binging model, but I do think we'll be seeing live broadcasts...just not of scripted.
Clear push from quality to “marketable” in recent years, to compete with other lower cost centers.
They will make some wrong turns in this epoch.
There’s still a lot of great films and TV on there, but they’re being damaged by the new approach. I also want to point out that network television managed to have both — to use your words — “quality” and “low quality” shows on for years. Something for everyone. When a network misunderstood that balance, their overall ratings slumped. When they got it right, such as NBC in the 90s, they dominated. My point is: this wouldn’t have been a mystery 25 years ago. Today, we act like it is.
Good points.
Yeah I’ll say this — I don’t want Netflix any more (it’s a tension for us), though not out of anger. I just don’t need a ton more content or “stuff.”
Their repositioning to try and manufacture an absurd amount of new content — mostly unmoored from the history before it — serves very few.
It’s a strategy, and I’m sure there’s a logic for it — but it seems like a lot of noise rather than signal at this point.
Maybe that’s my bias coming through?
I do like signal.
This Netflix topic is way too complex and nuanced to discuss in the comment section, but FWIW, here is my POV:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickellis/2026/07/12/insiders-offer-a-defense-of-netflix-and-streaming-tv/
And I am always ready to appear on someone's podcast and hash it out.
Well, the last thing I would want is to spend my lie editing a podcast episode about Netflix. Writing about it is depressing enough. Ha! I checked out the article, Rick, but I just don’t think it’s as complicated as you describe it. Not that all your points are all very valid to many aspects of the streaming world and what is going on at Netflix, but we’e discussing second season slumps and that’s an experiential issue. The TV experience at Netflix is arguably the worst in the streaming industry. I say “arguably”, but it really is. You address that in the experience of overseas viewers, but while it’s true they produce shorter seasons themselves, the majority of their television has always originated from the US. There isn’t a person alive over 35 who didn’t grow up watching 20+ episode seasons as a weekly part of their lives as local TV supplemented that. Nobody here in Australia talk about their Aussie shows from the 90s like “FRIENDS”, I mean. They talk about “FRIENDS”. British shows are sacred, but they all watch/ed “ER” and “SEINFELD” and “BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER” and “GREY’S ANATOMY”. That experience is what I’m writing about here, not the business side of things. The Netflix experience prevents a deep and meaningful TV experience, in my opinion. That’s not the case with all streamers or at least all the time at all streamers. Again, everything you wrote is correct, but I’d suggest it explains many other aspects of Netflix’s struggles and not necessarily this one. Do you know if there is any data on viewer satisfaction across streamers, audience retention in general, and audience loyalty between seasons? I guess what I’m asking is, data that gets at why, for example, other streamers have abandoned bingeing and how that might be impacting their success?
Conversely, can you just make some high quality 1 season limited series and not try and shoehorn in a second or third series for a show that was perfectly formed and complete in 1 season?
On a side note, ditto for SF and Fantasy authors.. Just right a f*cking standalone novel, not everything needs to be a goddamned trilogy or "saga" or "cycle"
I've turned against limited series myself. I like the idea of them, but I don't watch them anymore with few exceptions. I want characters I can reliably spend time with. My life doesn't have room for anything but that right now. That said, I absolutely hear your point.
i’m a fan of the “idea” of limited series, if only because there’s so much other great entertainment out there i want to check out – that said, limited series need to be designed as an event and released on a weekly schedule – much like traditional broadcast tv did, back in the day
while not really in the “event” category, i was happy enough to enjoy the one season of *The Boroughs* and move on
speaking of limited series – one of the masters of the form, Mike Flanagan (Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, Fall of the House of Usher etc) is back this year with his take on King’s Carrie
Excellent point about series. Suddenly everything has to be series, or series plural in the TV world. Often a great TV show gets stretched beyond anything the originators ever wanted to do. I always thought Buffy did a brilliant job creating series that had a beginning, middle and end, and then coming back with an even better series the next time around.
And novels!! I write what are now called standalones, a word that didn't really exist a few years ago. Suddenly I have become an oddity in the writing world because everyone else is pushing out sequel after sequel. And it's all genres, not just fantasy and SF.
Agreed. If a writer can't tell a satisfying story in 6-10 episodes (the Von Stroheim Length) then they don't know their craft. Aristotle stipulated a beginning, a middle, and an end -- not a beginning, a middle, a middle, and another damned middle. Very occasionally a show does something genuinely fresh with a new season, but in nine cases out of ten the extra seasons exist only to keep milking cash out of the thing by rehashing the first story arc again and again. Eventually it's impossible to remember why we even liked the show to begin with. Nowadays I'll only watch limited series. And I totally agree with you about SF/fantasy sagas too!
I don't think that's true about 9 out of 10 times. Almost every great TV series I can think of is multi-season. Very few limited series have had any long-term impact on pop culture or changed how TV is made either. They're great, don't get me wrong. But they vanish from our minds more times than not. All that said, a fun debate I would have all the time with producers is: "Why does this have to be a limited series? It would be much more satisfying as a film." Inevitably, I lost the argument because they thought there was more money to be made from the limited series. It always comes down to money.
It's curious that most people don't remember a limited series so vividly, even if they really enjoyed it, and yet they can read what is nowadays called a "standalone" novel and it stays with them for life.
I don't have a good explanation for that, though I think it's worth looping in the impact a movie of the week or event limited series had on network TV. "Roots", "North and South", and so on in the States. In the UK, there are similar event series given their role as annual holiday features, for example. These "events" - to stick with that term - united large numbers of audiences. Families often watched them together. They reached multiple generations. I'm not sure if a limited series on Netflix or Amazon or anywhere else today could make that impact, even though, arguably, they're reaching more people. I just don't think it's about how many people who are watching, but how many people who are watching together in some way or another that makes any of these events cultural moments. I will keep coming back to Occam's Razor in this argument, the simplest explanation being we used to do X in this way and the result was dramatically different. Now we do Y in a completely different way and everyone keeps asking, "Why don't people care the same way?" It's not YouTube, no matter how many times they throw that excuse out.
I wonder if the key difference is synchronous versus asynchronous?
Historically with broadcast TV, every watched the show at the same time then talked about it at work the next day, back in the days when people went to the office, and had time to jawbone around the water cooler. So, totally synchronous, with a little bit of time shifting at the margins once recording vcrs were released.
Binge watching a full series drop = totally asynchronous.
Streaming a weekly drop = still async but closer to synchronous because if you really like the show you're far more likely to watch the episode on the day of release. And the weekly schedule gives time for word-of-mouth to spread, people to binge the backlog, and then "sync up" on the weekly releases.
I think this is one of the issues that led to the rest of streamers abandoning the binge model. Shows have no time to build up a, as you put it, synchronous community. It'll never be like watching "MASH" or "FRIENDS" again, but that "we're watching it at least in the same week" means enthusiasm can collectively build over time and lead others to tune in too. This just happened to me with "WIDOW'S BAY" (which I loved). After six weeks of seeing everyone I know collectively shout about it, I felt I'd missed out and quickly caught up so I could at least watch the finale with everyone else and geek out about it together. Had the series been dropped in its entirety, most people would've reacted to the whole thing in the first week or two, by week five you'd have the sense if there was going to be a second season, and by week six, I would've already forgotten all the praise from those first two weeks because praise for something else would've supplanted it. TV and TV success is just not a lonely experience. It never has been and it never will be. The same way radio, before it went extinct, was a collective experience before it. We listened together and that mattered.
BTW speak to any Australian of a certain age about TV miniseries and ask them about "The Thorn Birds", which was huge back in 1983.
The Boroughs was fun (in my head canon it was a story about Doc Ock in retirement) but s2 would just have been a reheated version of s1, so I don't think we missed anything there.
Our policy is to subscribe to Netflix, Apple, HBO, whoever, then binge on the shows we like, then cancel the sub and cycle to the next streamer, returning when each has built up enough shows we want to see. I'd happily pay them on a per-show basis rather than by subscription.
I've been preaching the streamer rotation here for a while. It's the only way to beat them at the stupid game they have trapped us in.
yeah, it’s become part of the conversation – you mention a show you enjoyed and are asked where you watched it – quite often the person will then reply, “oh, we’re not with that streamer at the moment, but i’ll make a note to check it out when we go back to them” – people are creating their own viewing schedules independent of the streamers’ advertising and promotions
Yeah, I talk a lot about this in that article I linked to about whether peak TV helped destroy our reality. We're now longer watching things as a community. We're little islands who wave to each other from time to time. And that's pretty damn devastating.
Sometimes bingeing a show helps you keep up with the plot points, particularly when the show has a lot of characters and sub-plots. For example, I watched "Game of Thrones" twice: once when it was new content on HBO, with episodes released weekly with months to a year between seasons, and one time when I binged all the content consecutively from the first season to the last. I had a much better experience with the show the second time, because I was able to keep up with who was who and what was happening. Now, this might be the exception to the rule, but I also felt this way about "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" which isn't terribly complex but still worked better, IMO, when viewed consecutively from beginning to end.
Anyway, perhaps I'm an anomaly, but I much prefer having access to all the shows at one time. When you have a business model based on subscriptions and not ads, does it matter?
But you can binge a show after it’s aired in its entirety. You know, watch it in real time with the rest of the world and then rewatch it at the end of the season.
Sure. But if the initial experience is disjointed, you miss so much. The momentum gets halted. I'm currently watching "Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed" on Apple which is excellent. I think I would love it even more if the pace wasn't interrupted.
I'm sure that's your experience, but it's not most people's and that's why Apple skipped uploaded whole series at a time. The long-term result of that experience is very different than one where you have to wait, where you have to share the same experience with others, where your interest remains in a non-stop piqued state. But again, if you favor that experience, you can also just wait two months and binge the whole thing. If streaming does anything, it gives you the freedom to watch how you like.