What is the reason for the long waits anyway? Especially considering that actual runtime of an average season nowadays is 50% or less than what it used to be.

[–] Makeitstop@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Broadcast/cable TV had a schedule to fill. More than anything else, they needed to fill time slots. They planned around a calendar so annual seasons were only natural. That's also why they tended to have longer seasons, because it's easier to keep viewers coming back on schedule when they are already interested in a show. Plus it's cheaper to to make one long show than two short shows. It leads to brutal production schedules and massive creative compromises, but it fills airtime and that's what counts.

In other words, the economics of old school TV were about filling time while maximizing ratings and minimizing costs, which incentivizes making a smaller number of shows with longer seasons and regular releases.

Streaming has very different incentives. They don't care about filling a schedule, they just want you to subscribe. Every new show is a potential draw, and the more titles they have the more likely it is that one of them will appeal to you. They are incentivized to fill their catalog, not their calendar. As such, there's nowhere near as much pressure to churn out seasons like clockwork. If anything, they probably get more bang for their buck by waiting longer between seasons so that the release of each season is more of an event.

Hell, it doesn't even matter that much if it hurts the show in the long run. As long as they keep getting subscribers and have new shows (or popular old shows) to pull people in, they don't really care if an existing show dies.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

that is the companies/studios excuses. its really just to avoid paying the big actors "too much money". 8 episodes isnt exactly a time consuming project, many of the shows on netflix have very poor looking props ery cheaply made, and acting/writing kinda is very bad.

sandman was a good premise but it was too cringey in many of aspects.

[–] topperharlie@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I think it all comes down to netflix not greenlighting layer seasons until the previous one did well, and they release them complete. This means that by the time they decide to do a later season the whole team is working on other stuff.

Basically Netflix is handling business like a tech-bro company without stock, rather than a tv production company.

the silicon valley philosophy is toxic and stupid even for tech, for art/entertainment is basically leprosy.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

mostly because of bigger budgets making scheduling harder. higher profile actors, bigger crews, potential location filming, more time required for effects and post production.

I also heard writing takes longer because it has to be refined and tightened to fit in shorter seasons.

covid and writers strike also made everything worse for a while.

and part of it is probably intentional trying to milk the golden goose for as long as possible. apologies for the mixed metaphor.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

Maybe they should stop writing stuff for a second screen, and stop repeating the same thing over and over just in case you where on your phone the first couple of times.