On the one hand, broadcast TV typically had 20-26 episode seasons every year. On the other hand, this often included a lot of filler and could easily lead to huge compromises to get everything done. There will always be trade offs between quantity and quality, and only one of those is contractually obligated.

That being said, I really hate the way streaming has devolved into shows with 8 episodes or less in a season, with some of those episodes being significantly shorter than others, and all of them paced as though they have all the time in the world despite the season being over. That would be awful even if they did release seasons annually and never cancelled things early.

I feel like we figured out the perfect balance with Daredevil season 1. Thirteen really solid episodes, each being exactly as long as they need to be to tell the story they want, and all of them adding up to complete the arc for the season. I could nitpick and criticize some things, but the pacing was absolutely perfect.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 day ago

Filler or not people felt like they had a relationship with the characters. Now everything is so short and releases so long in between people don't have that.

[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 1 day ago

Being able to binge watch an entire season in one 8-hour workday you've decided to slack off on, is a bit too short. It's what used to be called miniseries.

[–] AmyAye@nord.pub 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

10-12 hour long episodes was a good sweet spot.

I kind of find older shows with 24 episode seasons painful to rewatch. It just starts to drag. Even shows I like a lot like Star Trek.

Sometimes I break it up a bit between seasons, I imagine being weekly before helped.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago

having 8 episodes isnt exactly helping as its quite limited and is unable to explore more subplots or potential arcs.