logoalt Hacker News

snovymgodymyesterday at 7:30 PM1 replyview on HN

I pretty much declared streaming show bankruptcy after sitting through Severance season 2 last year.

I know a lot of people liked it and maybe I'm just cynical, but to me it seems like every "serious" streaming show eventually falls victim to the "stretch a 2 hour movie's plot across a 12 - 16 hour season" strategy. They know it works because enough people binge watch or feel compelled to finish a series they've started.

At this point, if I'm watching a show then it's something where the episodes are sufficiently satisfying self-contained stories (e.g. something like Star Trek, X-Files, sitcoms). If I want something with a more involved plot, then I'll watch a movie. These formats are better because the limited runtime requires the creators to be intentional about what they dedicate screen time to. Meanwhile in a modern "story-driven" streamslop show it's painfully obvious when they're just padding out the runtime with fluff to make it to 8 episodes.

Of course there are exceptions to this, and there are stories for which a miniseries or a long-form series is the ideal video medium to convey them. But what happens so often is that you get 1-2 seasons of compelling storytelling followed by N more mediocre seasons that keep getting made because enough people keep watching. And the latter are just not worth the time investment.


Replies

arkaictoday at 12:02 AM

That is disheartening about Severance, I've been meaning to catch up on s2 after a phenomenal s1. But that you're totally on point about the padding. The last good series I saw that finished well was Mr Robot, getting closer to a decade ago now. No one knows how to write a well contained long running series anymore without stretching it with slop and content.