I was just thinking about this, having watched little in six months. I also hate that they will only carry a season or two of better show properties, for example, I wanted to rewatch Lost, but they wouldn’t have all six seasons. Meanwhile, they have directors out there buying multiple $400K beds for crap shows that get cancelled. Dumb.
Counter opinion here: I prefer Netflix’s policy of dropping the entire season at once. Weekly TV episodes, back in the day of water coolers, were developed as individual stories that were resolved in 30 or 60 minutes (minus ad time). You didn’t have to hold the minutiae of plot points for multiple episodes to fully engage with a new episode.
Streaming series are now developed as multi-hour movies. The recaps can’t fully bring you up to speed. In our home, we prefer to watch episodes with less than a week’s interval, but you can choose your own. It’s a choice.
I also don’t buy the argument that releasing episodes once a week makes for a more shared experience. People still watch episodes at their own pace and schedule. It’s not broadcast TV before DVRs. If you have friends who are watching episodes along with your schedule, bonus! Otherwise, friends usually start with “I haven’t watched it yet-no spoilers.”
My beef with Netflix is that the quality of their entertainment has gone downhill, at least for US made series. We tend to watch foreign series for that reason. And I do think your point about length between seasons is a huge detractor. OMITB and Slow Horses reliably deliver yearly, and maintain their audience’s enthusiasm.
I 100% agree that the quality and variety of Netflix has gone downhill. I've seen it explained elsewhere that Netflix went overboard with new content during the Covid years and spent too much money, now they have stepped back...and raised prices to boot. If you don't want to watch ads, the price for the service is way too high. It's all part of the enshittification of everything around us.
Yes, I think the overly serialized nature of a lot of streaming programming has made it hard for viewers to follow. If they miss a couple episodes, they’re lost.
Now that Arcane has wrapped up (after a 3 year break!?), our Netflix subscription is paused until the next Great British Bake-Off.
For a time, I could justify keeping Netflix as a default option as I worked through their catalog of modern classics: Bojack, Legion, Sex Education, the original Last Airbender and the (pre-adolescence) Dragon Prince. But the number of good shows that got cancelled early for ...*reasons* (Teenage Bounty Hunters) made me reluctant to invest in new series, and there's a lot more diversity in other catalogues now.
And the ratio of dreck to real heart feels less compelling, and prices went up a lot. Now it feel more like rent than the privilege it felt like 10 years ago.
Very interesting. I know that my streaming habits have changed DRAMATICALLY over the last 3 years...Its quite striking. For myself I attribute it to the recent MASSIVE changes in our society that have happened over SUCH a short period of time. I find that I feel different about EVERY ASPECT of life. I mean, I was a streaming ADDICT, and now? I stream nothing. Not one thing. The names of the recent Netflix shows you listed? I hadn't heard of a SINGLE ONE of them. The last thing I streamed was on Apple. Possibly my favorite streaming series of all time...Severance. The third season is coming up next year and I have ZERO interest in it. They waited too damn long...PLUS something in me has changed...My attention and focus can't accommodate the streaming format anymore. We quite literally live in a different world than we did until VERY recently. None of the old things seem to fit in this new place.
I dunno It just feels like ALL the stories have been fucking told./ Sorry for the rant. Its just so weird to have had something that major in my life that isn't even on the radar anymore
The long time between each season is annoying. You pretty much need to watch the last two episodes of the previous season to catch up. By then another shiny thing has caught your eye. Also, aside from the occasional good movie, Netflix doesn’t have enough to warrant its price.
Severance REALLY dropped the ball on that one...I was SO hooked! And now I'm 'meh'...Every show/phenomenon is, by definition 'of its time' and when too much has change IRL from one season installment to another, it just can't remain relevant...In Severance's defense though, they got sidelined by Covid, but the interval between season 2 and the upcoming season in August of 2027? There's no excuse for that
I imagine it also doesn't help when these companies routinely cancel things, and more and more companies are making older episodes of the series you like into Unobtanium. This is kind of a wider trend of not owning media too. So everything is ephemeral.
OG Game of Thrones was excellent source material for water cooler chit chat. House of the Dragon, a little less so, probably because no one is particularly likeable. (Just my opinion, we can fight it out at the water cooler 😉)
It was a compelling show, just not near the national audience the endless reviews and attention would have suggested. Not a cultural phenomenon in the way you think of “Seinfeld”, but it was treated as such by a certain cache of so-called consumers of sophisticated TV.
I was in on Breaking Bad on the first episode as it aired and it was excruciating to wait between seasons. There was almost a year between each season and they broke the last season into two parts with a year in between. My hub and kid however were late to the party and watched most of it on Netflix. We did watch the last season together and had a big watch party for the finale. In my opinion it was the best tv show ever. The second season of ATLA is really good, we get Toph and she is amazing, but yeah, its going to be hard waiting for the next season. I don't mind the binging and waiting as long as it's good.
I have thought for a while now that part of the slow-moving implosion of our shared reality is that we don’t experience cultural events as a community or nation anymore. I’m young enough to remember almost everyone wondering who shot JR, or crying at the M*A*S*H finale, or even excited over the upcoming nuptials of Luke & Laura. We now experience this in much smaller groups in reddit threads or on Twitter/X. It also doesn’t help that elite TV watchers are obsessed with niche programming like “Game of Thrones” when orders of magnitude more are tuned into “The Big Bang Theory” (or similar). The closest thing I can think of that we as a nation still experience and discuss collectively is the Super Bowl (no, not the stupid World Cup, the “Game of Thrones” of sports). I’m not sure how that changes, but adding yet another $8-10/month streaming service doesn’t help.
I think this take is 100% right...We're experiencing a kind of delayed effect. I'd add that it MIGHT be that people have become exhausted by the isolation and 'lack' of community. They're sick of the feeling. Which is a GOOD thing because recognizing it as a problem is the first step. Oddly enough, the No Kings marches kinda served the purpose of breaking the ice somewhat. We had become SO habituated to isolation and lack of connection we had to be reminded what it FELT like. AND I'm starting to see third spaces filling up with people more and more
Going back even further - wondering what became of Chuck Cunningham on "Happy Days," and to Tiger on "The Brady Bunch." Continuity on TV shows wasn't a thing in the 1960s and 1970s, but somehow that was part of the charm.
And everyone knew what your reference was when you said, “Sit on it!” 😅
Now, I’m aware that type of cultural homogeneity has it’s harsh critics, and it certainly had it’s drawbacks. But it’s also hard to argue our 30 year advocacy for individualism (from both a right and left perspective) and cultural siloing has made our society demonstrably better or more cohesive.
I tell kids today (when I’m not chasing them off my lawn) that you had to be alive in the early ‘80s to understand just how much everyone wanted to know what Willis was talkin’ ‘bout and no one, I mean no one, wanted to be the fool that Mr. T pitied.
I haven't had Netflix for many years, and don't miss it. Releasing an entire season of a series at once seems odd to me, and for the reasons that you and BrandoG state. Is the era of binge watching over? Perhaps, but people will still like being able to catch up on shows that they like, but weren't able to watch when they first dropped. And waiting YEARS between seasons is dumb. With all of the platforms available, shows, and movies available, waiting so long between seasons ensures that people forget a series, or get interested in other ones.
Agree with these points. Binging is still possible when you air episodes weekly (you can binge the old ones you missed) but a weekly drop at least ensures people go on the app over a period of months so they see promos for other shows or movies they might be interested in. Netflix would also benefit from having a better browsing function—it seems much more limited than their giant library would suggest. They could also likely pick up a bunch of interesting indie content on the cheap.
The other things I wonder about (depending on rights issues) is adding local news broadcasts, nightly talk shows (like a Conan style show, airing each night or weekly to keep it topical) and live sports broadcasts. These would pull in regular viewers who’d have more opportunity to find other content on the app, and many of these features just don’t exist with rival streamers. Plus, being able to get such content on a mobile device is way more convenient than using traditional TV.
What’s funny is that the 2nd season of the Four Seasons was much better than the 1st
I was just thinking about this, having watched little in six months. I also hate that they will only carry a season or two of better show properties, for example, I wanted to rewatch Lost, but they wouldn’t have all six seasons. Meanwhile, they have directors out there buying multiple $400K beds for crap shows that get cancelled. Dumb.
Counter opinion here: I prefer Netflix’s policy of dropping the entire season at once. Weekly TV episodes, back in the day of water coolers, were developed as individual stories that were resolved in 30 or 60 minutes (minus ad time). You didn’t have to hold the minutiae of plot points for multiple episodes to fully engage with a new episode.
Streaming series are now developed as multi-hour movies. The recaps can’t fully bring you up to speed. In our home, we prefer to watch episodes with less than a week’s interval, but you can choose your own. It’s a choice.
I also don’t buy the argument that releasing episodes once a week makes for a more shared experience. People still watch episodes at their own pace and schedule. It’s not broadcast TV before DVRs. If you have friends who are watching episodes along with your schedule, bonus! Otherwise, friends usually start with “I haven’t watched it yet-no spoilers.”
My beef with Netflix is that the quality of their entertainment has gone downhill, at least for US made series. We tend to watch foreign series for that reason. And I do think your point about length between seasons is a huge detractor. OMITB and Slow Horses reliably deliver yearly, and maintain their audience’s enthusiasm.
I 100% agree that the quality and variety of Netflix has gone downhill. I've seen it explained elsewhere that Netflix went overboard with new content during the Covid years and spent too much money, now they have stepped back...and raised prices to boot. If you don't want to watch ads, the price for the service is way too high. It's all part of the enshittification of everything around us.
Yes, I think the overly serialized nature of a lot of streaming programming has made it hard for viewers to follow. If they miss a couple episodes, they’re lost.
Now that Arcane has wrapped up (after a 3 year break!?), our Netflix subscription is paused until the next Great British Bake-Off.
For a time, I could justify keeping Netflix as a default option as I worked through their catalog of modern classics: Bojack, Legion, Sex Education, the original Last Airbender and the (pre-adolescence) Dragon Prince. But the number of good shows that got cancelled early for ...*reasons* (Teenage Bounty Hunters) made me reluctant to invest in new series, and there's a lot more diversity in other catalogues now.
And the ratio of dreck to real heart feels less compelling, and prices went up a lot. Now it feel more like rent than the privilege it felt like 10 years ago.
Very interesting. I know that my streaming habits have changed DRAMATICALLY over the last 3 years...Its quite striking. For myself I attribute it to the recent MASSIVE changes in our society that have happened over SUCH a short period of time. I find that I feel different about EVERY ASPECT of life. I mean, I was a streaming ADDICT, and now? I stream nothing. Not one thing. The names of the recent Netflix shows you listed? I hadn't heard of a SINGLE ONE of them. The last thing I streamed was on Apple. Possibly my favorite streaming series of all time...Severance. The third season is coming up next year and I have ZERO interest in it. They waited too damn long...PLUS something in me has changed...My attention and focus can't accommodate the streaming format anymore. We quite literally live in a different world than we did until VERY recently. None of the old things seem to fit in this new place.
I dunno It just feels like ALL the stories have been fucking told./ Sorry for the rant. Its just so weird to have had something that major in my life that isn't even on the radar anymore
The long time between each season is annoying. You pretty much need to watch the last two episodes of the previous season to catch up. By then another shiny thing has caught your eye. Also, aside from the occasional good movie, Netflix doesn’t have enough to warrant its price.
Severance REALLY dropped the ball on that one...I was SO hooked! And now I'm 'meh'...Every show/phenomenon is, by definition 'of its time' and when too much has change IRL from one season installment to another, it just can't remain relevant...In Severance's defense though, they got sidelined by Covid, but the interval between season 2 and the upcoming season in August of 2027? There's no excuse for that
True that. We loved Severance and picked it up for the 2nd season. Supposedly will be another.
I imagine it also doesn't help when these companies routinely cancel things, and more and more companies are making older episodes of the series you like into Unobtanium. This is kind of a wider trend of not owning media too. So everything is ephemeral.
I avoid the big services for this reason.
OG Game of Thrones was excellent source material for water cooler chit chat. House of the Dragon, a little less so, probably because no one is particularly likeable. (Just my opinion, we can fight it out at the water cooler 😉)
We hated those people too. Watched a few episodes and then stopped.
It was a compelling show, just not near the national audience the endless reviews and attention would have suggested. Not a cultural phenomenon in the way you think of “Seinfeld”, but it was treated as such by a certain cache of so-called consumers of sophisticated TV.
I was in on Breaking Bad on the first episode as it aired and it was excruciating to wait between seasons. There was almost a year between each season and they broke the last season into two parts with a year in between. My hub and kid however were late to the party and watched most of it on Netflix. We did watch the last season together and had a big watch party for the finale. In my opinion it was the best tv show ever. The second season of ATLA is really good, we get Toph and she is amazing, but yeah, its going to be hard waiting for the next season. I don't mind the binging and waiting as long as it's good.
I have thought for a while now that part of the slow-moving implosion of our shared reality is that we don’t experience cultural events as a community or nation anymore. I’m young enough to remember almost everyone wondering who shot JR, or crying at the M*A*S*H finale, or even excited over the upcoming nuptials of Luke & Laura. We now experience this in much smaller groups in reddit threads or on Twitter/X. It also doesn’t help that elite TV watchers are obsessed with niche programming like “Game of Thrones” when orders of magnitude more are tuned into “The Big Bang Theory” (or similar). The closest thing I can think of that we as a nation still experience and discuss collectively is the Super Bowl (no, not the stupid World Cup, the “Game of Thrones” of sports). I’m not sure how that changes, but adding yet another $8-10/month streaming service doesn’t help.
I think this take is 100% right...We're experiencing a kind of delayed effect. I'd add that it MIGHT be that people have become exhausted by the isolation and 'lack' of community. They're sick of the feeling. Which is a GOOD thing because recognizing it as a problem is the first step. Oddly enough, the No Kings marches kinda served the purpose of breaking the ice somewhat. We had become SO habituated to isolation and lack of connection we had to be reminded what it FELT like. AND I'm starting to see third spaces filling up with people more and more
sorry to go OT there!
OT is the best T! 😆
HUZZAH!
Going back even further - wondering what became of Chuck Cunningham on "Happy Days," and to Tiger on "The Brady Bunch." Continuity on TV shows wasn't a thing in the 1960s and 1970s, but somehow that was part of the charm.
And everyone knew what your reference was when you said, “Sit on it!” 😅
Now, I’m aware that type of cultural homogeneity has it’s harsh critics, and it certainly had it’s drawbacks. But it’s also hard to argue our 30 year advocacy for individualism (from both a right and left perspective) and cultural siloing has made our society demonstrably better or more cohesive.
I tell kids today (when I’m not chasing them off my lawn) that you had to be alive in the early ‘80s to understand just how much everyone wanted to know what Willis was talkin’ ‘bout and no one, I mean no one, wanted to be the fool that Mr. T pitied.
Right? Or asking if you were still the “Master of Your Domain” in the mid-90s.
I haven't had Netflix for many years, and don't miss it. Releasing an entire season of a series at once seems odd to me, and for the reasons that you and BrandoG state. Is the era of binge watching over? Perhaps, but people will still like being able to catch up on shows that they like, but weren't able to watch when they first dropped. And waiting YEARS between seasons is dumb. With all of the platforms available, shows, and movies available, waiting so long between seasons ensures that people forget a series, or get interested in other ones.
Agree with these points. Binging is still possible when you air episodes weekly (you can binge the old ones you missed) but a weekly drop at least ensures people go on the app over a period of months so they see promos for other shows or movies they might be interested in. Netflix would also benefit from having a better browsing function—it seems much more limited than their giant library would suggest. They could also likely pick up a bunch of interesting indie content on the cheap.
The other things I wonder about (depending on rights issues) is adding local news broadcasts, nightly talk shows (like a Conan style show, airing each night or weekly to keep it topical) and live sports broadcasts. These would pull in regular viewers who’d have more opportunity to find other content on the app, and many of these features just don’t exist with rival streamers. Plus, being able to get such content on a mobile device is way more convenient than using traditional TV.