The original post: /r/television by /u/elchoksy on 2025-08-13 03:28:11+00:00.
It feels like in the past, even the biggest, most ambitious shows managed to release a season every year without losing quality. The Sopranos, The Wire, Game of Thrones, Dexter, even Lost, all massive productions, and yet they still delivered new seasons annually. These weren’t low-budget, quick-turnaround shows; they were high-quality and visually ambitious, but they still kept a steady schedule.
Now it seems like the biggest shows take two or three years between seasons. Stranger Things had its last season in 2022, and the next one still isn’t out. House of the Dragon took two years to get to Season 2. The Boys drops a new season roughly every two years. Euphoria is taking three years between seasons. The Last of Us will also have a two-year gap between seasons. I get that these shows require huge production work and VFX, and I’d rather have quality over rush jobs — but sometimes the wait is so long it kills the momentum.
For me, when a gap is that big, I forget story details, plotlines, and even the excitement I had when the last season ended. I end up watching recaps just to remember what happened, and it’s harder to feel as invested. Compare that to something like Lost, which had around 20+ episodes per season, came out every year, and still maintained high production quality. Somewhere along the way, prestige TV shifted to “event seasons” instead of consistent yearly storytelling, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing.