The original post: /r/television by /u/itsameamario78 on 2025-01-06 17:18:56.
Okay, I’m going to try and be as brief as I can with this and I think at the end of this, I’m going to blame streaming, but really, it’s our fault that we allowed this to happen to TV in the first place.
First off, I want to say that I miss watching a different, new show every night of the week. When I was kid and then throughout my twenties, there was a show I would watch that night and it was always a new episode. There was must watch TV nights, that if you missed an episode, you couldn’t talk to about the episode, the next day to your friends at school or work the next day. It was a great way to meet people!
I remember when there was either a new comedy or drama I would be watching. Whether or not it would be from something like the Arrowverse, Supernatural or the Vampire Diaries, or in the comedy world, we’d have new episodes of back-to-back shows like the Office and Parks and Rec on and in one night. Other nights would have new episodes of: Two in a Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, Community, Scrubs and even before then, shows like Frasier, Seinfeld, Cheers, Friends, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, South Park and much more. Don’t even get me started in all the animated shows I used to watch on Toonami that were new.
Now? I am struggling to find like one or two shows that I like that doesn’t get cancelled after 2 seasons or only lasts 3 or 4, with 12 or 8 episodes a season. Part of me wants to blame the 8 episode format, that 8 or 12 episodes a season is not enough for shows to give solid backgrounds to their characters. I blame Star Wars and Marvel for this. While I like those shows, the episodes are often too short and finding out that we actually need filler episodes to bring world building shows to life better and establish more rules to the universe. Shows like the Boys do this really well stll, which is going into its final season, it’s a dying breed of a show that no longer exists. As in Star Wars and Marvel shows, we know the rules already, but in other shows like comedies, we don’t know them, they need to be established and better written than in 8 episodes a season.
I believe that comedies like That 90’s Show failed for this reason, because they couldn’t develop the new characters in the same way the told the stories of Eric, Donna, Hyde, Fez and Kelso. They force relationships on us that make no sense and add nothing to the story or in some cases, end them too soon. Comedies are a great example of why sitcoms should go back to the 20 episode a season format for them to work. Networks expect them to hit a home run with their fist at bat, if not they’re a failure. In today’s world, shows that originally struggled at first, like Cheers, the Office and Seinfeld would have never had made it. Imagine if Seinfeld or the Office had been canned after the first 8 episodes of those shows.
Their first seasons are nothing like 3 or 4, in some cases, like Parks & Rec changed right into season 2. I would like to blame streaming, everyone going back to watching older shows and not giving new ones a chance. But, I think we did this too ourselves. We let their become too many streaming apps, by not stopping when we should of, by caving to them increasing prices and keeping them around because at the time, they were cheaper than cable. Now here we are, with so many streaming choices that we’re paying for much as we did with cable. All we had to do before, was watch a few commercials in between shows. Though, I myself hates watching ads, I have to have ask myself, is it worth it? Did we destroy TV forever?
Can we go back to the way things once were if networks gave shows more a chance? I have no idea. What do you think? Are TV shows forever damaged and beyond repair? Or can we go back to fix things, to make them like the way before. Because sometimes, newer isn’t always better. Thanks for reading. Have a great day!