The original post: /r/television by /u/IndieCurtis on 2026-05-22 19:14:11+00:00.
About 15 years ago television convinced us that it wanted to be as good as the movies. They held it up for a while. That time is over.
I no longer trust new tv shows enough to watch anything that has multiple seasons of story that hasnt finished yet. Anthology tv still works, like White Lotus. Miniseries work, because we can trust them to complete a thought. The Last Of Us season 2 was a bust. The Boys finale was a disaster. House of the Dragon sucks.
I literally am at a point where I wait until a show is over and done with before I will watch. And I thought about how many more people there are like me. That basically means a huge portion of the audience is sitting out the show while it is running.
Shows are being rewritten midstream based on engagement metrics. I really felt this with season 2 of Squid Game and The Last of Us, like the shows got popular so somebody came in and ruined it to appeal to a wider audience.
So now, any good show that gets hype gets ruined. Can’t even trust if the entire first season is out with great reviews that the next season won’t be overengineered crap. Television is over. They broke it.
My advice: watch more movies. There is not much difference between watching 2 episodes of a prestige drama and watching a movie. HBO has Criterion movies right now. If I were to suggest a starting point, it would be Paris, Texas (1984).
Edit: everybody in the comments mentioning shows that stopped airing years ago proving my point. And I’m not saying that there aren’t any good shows currently running. I just don’t trust any of them to stay good for another season.
Name a great series finale from the last 2.5 years, so from 2024 until now. US drama only, no miniseries, no anthology. Multi-season dramas only.