I’ve recently come to realize that I absolutely despise watching new shows and I think I’ve finally figured out why.
It’s mainly due to my fear of them getting cancelled after just one season but the more I think about it, there’s a lot more that goes into it than just that.
There’s a few pieces that makes up this complicated puzzle that results in my loaded statement of not liking new shows. It doesn’t matter what the premise is, what the plot is, if there’s any hated characters that made me make up my mind in such a way. But it’s not the shows that make me think this way. Rather it’s the companies and corporations producing these shows that made my decision for me.
One of the biggest problems that TV executives are facing these days is figuring out how they can cater their shows to their younger audiences. Their main focus, and problem, being Gen-Z. Speaking solely off of my experience with newer shows, they produce what they think Gen-Z wants to see and not what we actually want to see.
Shows in the past quite literally just threw anything at all the wall to see what stuck and ran with it whenever they had the numbers to prove their idea was worthy. From the viewer’s perspective, it’s almost like these companies are too afraid to go back to the old way of doing things and have now become more money-focused. Only producing shows that are guaranteed to make back the money in record time.
It’s shattered my trust with Netflix as a company because they’ve trained me to believe that every new show I come across will get cancelled after the first season. To not get attached to the characters, the storyline, any major plotlines. What use is watching it then? Why invest my time and attention, which they’re so desperate for, getting attached to a storyline that won’t ever get an ending? Getting attached to the character’s who will never develop. The scenes that will never develop alongside the characters and plot.
I think of shows like The 100 whose character’s had the biggest character development I’ve ever witnessed in my experience with television. The difference being, that show actually had the time to do that compared to the shows that get cancelled after its first season.
There’s no slow-burn TV shows anymore and I think that’s the main root of my problem. We used to get shows that easily had 5+ seasons each filled with twenty episodes that were all 45 minutes in length. Now, we get maximum three seasons – if we’re lucky – with six to eight episodes that are all about an hour long. It’s almost as if these shows could’ve been a movie instead of being broken up into episodes.
I want the slower plot lines, the ones that take more to develop. I want a slow storyline, the ones that take the entire show to showcase. I want the slower character-arcs, the ones that demonstrate how drastic a character’s journey has been. I want to be able to watch these shows back and realize just how far they’ve come since the first season. And we just don’t see that anymore.
It makes me think of Pretty Little Liars, a show that took an entire seven seasons to figure out who was making their lives a living hell. And I understand that there wouldn’t have been as long of a show without keeping that hidden from the viewers, but that show took us on a journey. All the side plots and accusations of who “A” was.
When we thought we had finally figured it out from the viewer’s perspective, there the show was throwing us a new character and plotline shattering our ‘accomplishment’. Those girls were constantly going through the ringer and in doing so, it kept us as viewers engaged and it left us wanting more. It left us wanting to keep watching.
I think one of the only ways that I’d be able to enjoy watching new series again is if we went back to the standard TV format of each season having at least twenty episodes, each being 45 minutes long and releasing them on a weekly basis instead of all at once like we’ve grown accustomed to.
In my opinion, one of the main issues with streaming and why shows keep getting cancelled is because the first season doesn’t perform as well as they’re expecting. And it’s not that the ideas are bad, albeit there are a few weird ones, I think the expectations placed on these shows (especially with only one season released) are too high. Not enough people know about it at that time and marketing can only do so much until word-of-mouth takes over.
I’ve told all my friends about Daisy Jones and The Six and they’ve each told me that they would’ve never heard of it if I hadn’t told them about it. Just because they haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it’s a bad show, it just means that the marketing for this show didn’t reach the area of the internet in which they mainly reside.
The main thing that I’m most curious about in terms of streaming’s trajectory is what it will look like once Stranger Things has ended. And if I’m being honest, I think ST set the blueprint for Netflix’s standards when it comes to new shows. But even ST didn’t take off immediately. I remember when my sister had watched the first season and looking back on it now, there wasn’t a lot of hype built around it when it first released.
Then comes the second season. And even then, it wasn’t anything compared to what the show has become today. The show released in 2016 and didn’t become popular until 2019 after the show’s third season release. ST took three years and three seasons to gain all the hype that it’s harnessed today.
How are other shows supposed to measure up to the success of Stranger Things if they’re getting cancelled after the first season? I think of shows like First Kill, and Julie and the Phantoms – both getting cancelled after their first season and both of their stories just getting started. It’s almost as if pilot episodes cease to exist and it’s now become pilot seasons instead.
But shows can’t be deemed ‘good’ if streaming sites aren’t giving them the time to prove themselves worthy of that title and rating. Netflix strips that opportunity from them before the show can even get its feet off the ground. In doing so, Netflix doesn’t leave us wanting more. It leaves us with an empty void that we as viewers are responsible for filling since they won’t.
It leaves me wondering why shows such as The Simpsons and Grey’s Anatomy are still getting renewed for season after season even after being on air for over twenty years?
Grey’s Anatomy is as old as my sister. Ellen Pompeo, who plays the main character in Grey’s, is only featured in four out of ten episodes in their 20th season – even though the show is based around Meredith Grey’s life. Why is it still running if Meredith is no longer a predominant character on the show?
Even Grey’s succumbed to modern TV trends of giving us the bare minimum in terms of episodes per season. We’re used to getting twenty episodes per season with Grey’s and they’re only giving us ten in their latest season. When, and more importantly why, did this become the standard?
It’s made me want to start getting the box set for my favourite shows. And while it will be more expensive to do so, I at least would have the reassurance that I’d still be able to watch without the looming fear of it getting taken off streaming platforms.
If you have any recommendations for new shows, I will gladly take them. Preferably shows that don’t have just three seasons if possible.
Do you struggle with watching new shows? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to discuss it more.
julzy 
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