Courtesy of Empire

As an avid show watcher, I love sitting down at night and unwinding to a series I have begun to obsess over. Nothing is better than watching some satisfying tv after a long day. That being said, I’ve begun to notice some ridiculous trends in the most popular shows I watch. Episodes are cut, trimmed down to 6-8 per season, it’s taken 2-4 years for new seasons to come out, and the worst, in my opinion, the multi-part release. These shows with crazy budgets seem to be doing everything their viewers don’t want, and I am not happy about it.

To start, most tv shows released these days only have 6-8 episodes per season. I am a firm believer that getting lost in the world of a show is one of the best experiences possible, so shows denying this to me is aggravating. Long gone are the days of 20 episodes a season, and now you’re lucky if you get 10. For some of these shows, that immersive experience can’t be created without adequate time, and the attempts to do it with limited episodes frequently fail. Beyond that, viewers just want to see more of their favorite plots, characters, and worlds. When this is denied enjoyment decreases, and all are left unhappy. I don’t fully know why this has begun happening, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was to save costs.

The next problem really irks me. Nowadays it seems as if every show that comes out only produces a new season every 2 to 4 years. Bridgerton, I’m looking at you. Despite my love for the show, the gaps between seasons are quite frankly ridiculous. Season 4 is out for streaming now, finally, but when these long breaks are taken it becomes hard for me to actually care. To put it in context, season 3 came out when I was a sophomore, and I am now a senior with about 3 months until graduation. I understand scriptwriting, filming, and editing take a long time but my God the books have already come out. I need these people to speed things along, because the more I rewatch the same season the more I get bored of it. Don’t even get me started on Stranger Things. The last season came out when I was in 8th grade… again I am about to graduate!!! I didn’t even watch the new season because I genuinely can’t be bothered. I have no idea who the characters are anymore, and I honestly don’t care about what happens because I am so far removed from that world I have no interest in it anymore. Rather than building anticipation, the show lost a viewer.

Now, by far the worst of the offenses, is the multi-part release. Not only do we have to wait years for new seasons, those seasons are also now split up into releases that are a month apart. Pleaseeeee either drop it all at once or do a weekly release!!!! Why build up all that anticipation, just to stop right in the middle of the show and make the viewers wait? I am a firm believer that this is a money making scheme. Streaming services want viewers to pay for an additional month of subscription so they make releases at least a month apart. Now to me this is just greedy, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The worst offenders are Bridgerton and Stranger Things, which seem to be guilty of a lot in my world. Now despite how much I love Bridgerton, even after the dumpster fire that was season 3, these two part releases are killing me. When I’m watching something I don’t want to have to wait to finish it, especially since I’ve already waited years for a new season. I wouldn’t care if shows were released weekly, like The Pitt (which is an incredible show btw), but it’s the fact that it all just seems like a money grab that really gets me. I get so into the show I’m watching, and then I realize this is not the whole story and I’m left just waiting. This is not making me excited for the next part, it’s just making me annoyed! So please, show makers, drop the whole thing at once and let me enjoy my binge watching!

If you’ve come this far, you probably feel the same about tv these days, so all I can say is I hope some changes are made. It seems streaming services and the people that produce these shows think their viewers are stupid, which is infuriating enough on its own. My personal solution is boycotting the shows that are the worst offenders, because we all know money talks, and so does viewership. Though I can’t bring myself to stop watching Bridgerton, I don’t think I’ll ever watch Stranger Things again, and I encourage anyone reading to do the same.