Excessive lag time between seasons is killing TV 📆🫥📆
fangirling for: the hottest Skarsgard + Meghann Fahhey slaying in Sirens + M3GAN 2.0 slaying at Pride WeHo
Kaley on streaming TV’s between season bloat
This week, I’m sharing a personal gripe. Not mine actually, but my husband’s, who makes a solid point: the time between TV seasons is too goddamn long.
Last week, after the season 2 finale of The Last of Us aired on HBO, he griped about not getting more for 3 years. He’s maybe being a little hyperbolic, but not by much, as the show had more than a 2 year gap between seasons one and two.
And the zombie thriller is not the only slow horse. Every streaming brand has guilty offenders. From bad to worse:
Bridgerton (Netflix): 26 months between seasons 2 and 3
The White Lotus (HBO): 26 months between 2 and 3
The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu): 29 months between 5 and 6
Severance (Apple TV): 33 months between 1 and 2
Squid Game (Netflix): 39 months between 1 and 2
And the very worst offender: Stranger Things (Netflix), which will be a full 40 months between seasons 5 and 6 airing this fall.
I know Covid and the writers’ strike and blah blah, but the writers strike lasted less than 5 months and ended more than a year and a half ago. And this has been an ongoing issue since at least 2018, when Emily St. James wrote about it for Vox.
Some streaming shows of similar levels of prestige like The Bear *are* able to stick to a season a year. A feat so notable there are threads about it on reddit.
Another crazy fact: Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown was 12 when the show first aired and will be 21 when the finale of season 5 airs. Eleven went from child to wife of Jon Bon Jovi’s son!
I’ll grant that most episodes of The Bear are shorter and the show doesn’t rely on CGI like Stranger Things and The Last Of Us. But otherwise, is it significantly different? It’s also “prestige TV,” it’s also on streaming, it’s also released weekly, and its cast is also in demand.
As an expert on fandom with a background in TV, believe me when I say the norm of long lag times between seasons is a problem. They’re an obstacle to fanship and are detrimental to the medium, especially scripted TV. Which, as someone who also considers herself a huge TV fan… sucks.
A long lag between seasons is not conducive to a good viewing experience. And it’s not just impatience (okay, a lot of it is impatience), the lag harms viewer investment. Like this Redditor says: the longer the lag, the less likely they are to return.
In this context, it’s unsurprising that unscripted series are drawing more engagement. Franchises like The Bachelor and Survivor can pop out multiple seasons a year and require little to no season-over-season long term memory from viewers. Love is Blind produced 8 seasons in 5 years (and pioneered a new release cadence). In this way, the show is more in tune with the way pop culture - and cultural relevance - works today.
From St. James’ 2018 article:
“It’s not unimaginable to envision a future where new seasons of TV shows are treated like movie sequels, arriving every two or three years and becoming major events when they premiere, then receding in the pop culture landscape between new installments.”
Seven years later, the future St. James imagined has come to pass. And it’s one TV fans did not ask for. New seasons of TV *are* treated more like movie sequels, with ambitious and expensive marketing campaigns trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to turn new season premieres into major events. But the between-installment recession from the pop culture landscape that St. James predicted has not been without consequence. I’d argue it’s one of the factors at play behind Peak TV’s contraction, especially among scripted content.
Bloated lag times between seasons aren’t the only reason scripted TV is on the decline, but they definitely don’t help. In the current cultural climate, viewers don’t have the patience, cognitive capacity, or interest to wait multiple years between seasons. For many fans, TV is ritualistic and watching your favorite characters is akin to inviting friends into your home. You want to see your friends - real or fictional - more than 8 weeks out of every three years! If brands want people to make their offering a part of their lives, they have to show up regularly and deliver. Entertainment brands need to re-prioritize annual release schedules, so scripted TV - and fans - don’t continue to pay the price.
This Week In Cool Shiny Culture:
🤖 Kaley’s Cool: Alexander Skarsgård in Apple TV’s Murderbot.
My husband has been eagerly awaiting the TV adaptation of Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries book series and three episodes in, Alexander has kept me engaged. Alexander (incidentally one of my all time favorite white men), plays the titular “murderbot,” aka a security android who’s hacked his way into free will and has so far mostly used it to shirk work and binge watch TV (relatable!). It’s a quirkier, more darkly humorous character for Skarsgård than he sometimes gets to play (closer to the laughs of his character in Succession than the intensity of his characters in Big Little Lies and True Blood). Beyond Alexander, the series is a little shaky, but really, who needs reasons beyond Alexander?
Random heartwarming Hollywood lore: Alexander’s BFF (with benefits???) is Jack McBrayer.
🖼️ Megan’s Cool: Downtown Burbank Summer Arts Festival
Over the weekend I stopped by the Summer Arts Festival in Downtown Burbank. Taking place outside of the mall I used to go to growing up, it was a lively, fun weekend-long event where makers and artists of all levels showcased and sold their wares. I got a guilty puppy stamp from CuddlyWood, a crochet chicken from Soulfully Marisela, and admired the butterfly stickers at Persimmon. It was cool to see so many people supporting the arts. Notably, there were quite a few entrepreneurial kids there, many selling 3D-printed tchotchkes. My favorite was Woodland Wonders, a line of dinosaur-meets-flower creations by sisters Amelia and Olivia Smith.
8️⃣ Kaley’s Shiny: The next gen discovers a Millennial favorite
I discovered my niblings love Eminem. I asked my nephew (9) his favorite music artist and he reported that it’s KSI (who I know as a hugely successful YouTuber, but is also a rapper), and Eminem. It’s almost heartwarming that kids over the course of three decades have gravitated towards the immature humor and insane talent of Slim Shady. My nephew went on to say that his “favorite Eminem song has a lot of curse words in it.” Cue my 6 year old niece, with no hesitation and without missing a beat: “Alexa, play Ass Like That.”
🧜 Megan’s Shiny: Sirens on Netflix
Despite how she spells her first name, I think Meghann Fahy is one of the best actresses on TV. Her latest show, Netflix’s Sirens puts her opposite Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon, and Milly Alcock in a psychological mystery on a ritzy east coast island. Much to the chagrin of Netflix’s literal-minded viewers, there are no literal mermaids but rather soap-opera style exploration of the complicated dynamics of female power through siren metaphors. It’s a beautifully shot show that with a different cast might have veered too campy but in my opinion is pitch perfect. Let me know if you watched it! I’m dying to discuss with someone smart and Kaley isn’t interested. 🤷🏽♀️
Marketing: M3gan @ Pride
If M3gan absolutely serving at WeHo’s Pride Parade is any indication… Maybe AI is going to steal our jobs. We’re giving all the props to the iconic marketing gay who had the idea to reprise the robot’s notorious moves IRL ahead of M3GAN 2.0 out later this month. It’s especially notable in a world where many brands have pulled back from publicly supporting Pride events. Blumhouse and Universal know to pay respect to the community that made the original movie an outsized cultural success.
Must see TT Comment Section: Crowdsourced HGTV
It’s not uncommon for people to post their space online, crowdsourcing ideas for home improvement. But when TikToker @goodluckbeans posted a random alcove in their new apartment and asked what they should do, the comments did not disappoint. Commenters used TikTok’s new feature that allows users to comment with photos of their digital and/or AI-generated renderings to submit suggestions for the space. From serious (an aquarium, office space, bar) to silly (slot machine, jail cell) this is a rare fun and accessible use of AI in the wild.
Kaley’s Sabbatical Report Weeks 2 & 3:
I’m three weeks deep in sabbatical land and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m happier and a whole lot less stressed when I’m not working. What a revelation! After the first week, which just felt like normal PTO, the last two weeks have felt like a true sabbatical, where I’ve been able to really detach from work, let my brain wander, and see my creativity flourish again. I’m sleeping a lot better, with less middle of the night insomnia and no sleep aids. I’ve been working up to going tech free, but it’s hard! Future reports forthcoming.
Hey hey,
Kaley & Megan