be careful what you wish for?
Dec. 24th, 2023 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wembleyMerry Xmas, happy holidays, happy very belated Chanukah, here's me copy and pasting something I wrote on Bluesky about episodic vs serialized tv:
This person wrote this (which, according to FFA, inspired a long thread by J. Michael Straczynski here):
https://twitter.com/JohnnySobczak/status/1737274115944288440
Sorry to act entitled over a non-serious issue, but it has to be said: being made to wait 2-3 years between seasons of television that are 8-10 episodes long is inexcusable and unsustainable. Just total corporate dissonance with regard to what people like about watching TV shows.
And that tweet and JMS' thread prompted this from me (cleaned up and edited):
Except here's the thing. At least in sff fandom nerd land, where I live, folks were creaming their jeans over serialization for the entire 90s & early '00s. Including me! DS9 was "better & more mature" because serialized. Same for B5. British shows were touted as better because they had fewer episodes -- quality over quantity. We heard this CONSTANTLY. This was the prevailing opinion. I don't remember a lot of discourse about filler episodes around this time (though I feel like I would hear anime fans talk about it?), but tv nerds like me were absolutely & understandably reacting to the pre-Buffy 1950s-80s model where characters simply did not remember what happened the episode before. Miles O'Brien gets brutally tortured? Next ep, he's fine. No emotional continuity, perpetual amnesia. It felt weird! That's not how humans work! It made sense for fans to want something else, for wanting the medium to evolve. And it did! Also, the purely episodic time gave us clip shows & that sucks*. On the plus side, it gave tv big writers rooms because 3 people can't possibly come up with 24 goddamn stories quickly, that's an insane amount of story.
BUT those insanely long episodic seasons, as folks like JMS have pointed out, let us get to know these characters for longer. (Also, less & shorter ad breaks gave us teasers & tags that were purely character-driven. I loved those.) But we can't pretend that the model we've had for the past decade isn't something we all LOUDLY CLAMORED FOR for the *previous* decade. Netflix gave us what we asked for, and gave it to us good and hard, and now we're realizing that, as usual in the US, we have swung wildly between extremes instead of just sensibly moderating. (The Buffy model is A+.)
*except for the Dinosuars clip shows. Those were very good.
This person wrote this (which, according to FFA, inspired a long thread by J. Michael Straczynski here):
https://twitter.com/JohnnySobczak/status/1737274115944288440
Sorry to act entitled over a non-serious issue, but it has to be said: being made to wait 2-3 years between seasons of television that are 8-10 episodes long is inexcusable and unsustainable. Just total corporate dissonance with regard to what people like about watching TV shows.
And that tweet and JMS' thread prompted this from me (cleaned up and edited):
Except here's the thing. At least in sff fandom nerd land, where I live, folks were creaming their jeans over serialization for the entire 90s & early '00s. Including me! DS9 was "better & more mature" because serialized. Same for B5. British shows were touted as better because they had fewer episodes -- quality over quantity. We heard this CONSTANTLY. This was the prevailing opinion. I don't remember a lot of discourse about filler episodes around this time (though I feel like I would hear anime fans talk about it?), but tv nerds like me were absolutely & understandably reacting to the pre-Buffy 1950s-80s model where characters simply did not remember what happened the episode before. Miles O'Brien gets brutally tortured? Next ep, he's fine. No emotional continuity, perpetual amnesia. It felt weird! That's not how humans work! It made sense for fans to want something else, for wanting the medium to evolve. And it did! Also, the purely episodic time gave us clip shows & that sucks*. On the plus side, it gave tv big writers rooms because 3 people can't possibly come up with 24 goddamn stories quickly, that's an insane amount of story.
BUT those insanely long episodic seasons, as folks like JMS have pointed out, let us get to know these characters for longer. (Also, less & shorter ad breaks gave us teasers & tags that were purely character-driven. I loved those.) But we can't pretend that the model we've had for the past decade isn't something we all LOUDLY CLAMORED FOR for the *previous* decade. Netflix gave us what we asked for, and gave it to us good and hard, and now we're realizing that, as usual in the US, we have swung wildly between extremes instead of just sensibly moderating. (The Buffy model is A+.)
*except for the Dinosuars clip shows. Those were very good.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-30 11:41 pm (UTC)It's almost fascinating how often people will complain about a trend in popular media while utterly ignoring why that trend started. As you said, fans of TV shows were happy when the shorter seasons with more continuity became fashionable! And now we've swung all the way back to pining for filler episodes - not saying that's bad, just think it's a little funny that some people don't seem to realize there was ever any backlash to that sort of TV.
Personally, while I can understand being frustrated with having to wait for the next season of your favorite show, I think the waiting is part of the fun! That's when you can speculate, write what-if fanfics, and let what you've seen of the show already fully sink in. I honestly doubt I could keep up with shows that updated "too often".
PS. Belated happy holidays and a soon to be Happy New Year!