The original post: /r/television by /u/Level-Studio7843 on 2025-09-11 13:12:43+00:00.
The vast majority of TV shows are planned one season at a time. It is rarely ever the case that the showrunner knows how the show will end at the time of the pilot airing. Pretending that the reason a show sucked was because they didnt have a grand master plan from the very start is disingenuous. Plenty of wildly successful showrunners (eg. Breaking Bad) have admitted to not having thought out the entire story in advance. On the other hand, How I Met Your Mother, whose ending was planned and shot during season 1, is wildly criticized for “shoehorning” a pre-planned ending instead of evolving with the progression of the story and characters.
The issue isn’t that they are making it up as they go. The issue is that you didnt like what they made up.