[ SECRET POST #5962 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5962 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #852.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. https://i.imgur.com/V6Nl3IY.png

[kaijinscendre]

I have dropped a ton of shows in my day. Mostly I just forget about them after the first season. Maybe I should go check some of those out now they are done.

[kaishi]

I don't even start watching anything until it's over and consensus was the ending wasn't a complete shit show. I've been burned waaaay too many times.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I'm really not sure why OP seems to think this is somehow a Netflix thing. I can list off more than a dozen shows that aired on actual television that went majorly downhill as they went on.

[(Anonymous)]

Because Netflix is even more aggro about canceling stuff than old networks were

[(Anonymous)]

It's not exclusively a Netflix thing, but Netflix is one of the biggest culprits of this and it's not a secret.

[(Anonymous)]

Because Netflix canceled every bloody show except fucking Stranger Things which is a shitshow after the first season.
(I am saying they are really the most noticeable offender)

[(Anonymous)]

only s2 of stranger things is a shitshow

[(Anonymous)]

Well, maybe, but I don't believe them now. Also I really do not care for Siberian Siberia gulag (in the 80s) of doom

[(Anonymous)]

DA - I'm with you on this. I am still a massive fan of S1, I think it is a nearly perfect season of TV, but I feel like every seasons since has been unfocussed, uninspired, and basically just the show coasting (and coasting, and coasting) on the credit it built with its audience in S1.

I know a lot of people feel like S4 was a return to form, but I just can't agree. I found it messy, bloated, and unfocussed. I did quite like the first episode of S4--I thought it felt relatively fresh and intriguing, mainly thanks to Chrissy and Eddie and how genuinely horrifying the climax of Chrissy's plotline was. But then I was once against disappointed when everything after 4x01 felt like it lacked that freshness and energy all over again.

[(Anonymous)]

I loved season 1, enjoyed season 2, was extremely let down by season 3, and sighed my way through season 4. My hopes for 5 are in the gutter.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I'm starting to feel the same way.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, I relate to some of this way too hard. Though for me fear of cancellation isn't really a factor. Cancellation of a great show hurts, but it's a bittersweet hurt, because it means I loved the show, and it also means the show will never go downhill and I'll get to remember it with only affection and admiration.

However the fear of a really good show going downhill has caused me to compulsively stop watching so many things, and I kind of hate it.

In some cases what will happen is that I'll start to feel like the show might be going downhill, and that's what causes me to bail. The problem is that I don't necessarily hang around long enough to be fully sure that the show really is going downhill, or if it's just a momentary wobble.

This tends to happen most often with feel-good shows that are a pleasure to watch. E.g. I bailed on Ted Lasso one episode into S2, and I bailed on Brooklyn 99 three episodes into S6.

Then there are the shows that I stop watching purely out of fear that they might start to go downhill soon. This usually happens with a very specific type of show: dark, challenging, conceptually thorny, very well-written but often hard to watch.

S1 of The Knick was extremely good but I couldn't bring myself to come back for S2.

S1–4 of Mad Men was extremely good but I couldn't bring myself to come back for S5.

Succession is superb but I stalled three episodes into S3.

S1 of The Boys was surprisingly good, but I couldn't bring myself to come back for S2.

I think it's because I really dislike unbridled cynicism, but I LOVE fiction that explores dark and upsetting topics and ideas without shying away from the more challenging aspects. And so a lot of my favorite stories exist right on the edge of the precipice; they're dark in a way that I find complex, nuanced, and challenging, but the second the writing loses its edge, they start to ping as unbridled cynicism and I'm left feeling nothing but squicked. And the thought of that happening is such a bummer to me that I end up bailing before it can happen.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you!
I like darkish or dark stories. But I hate cynicism. So it's really difficult to navigate

[(Anonymous)]

I like to just fling myself right into a random middle season episode or watch some random clips on youtube and go from there.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I do think the problem is streaming (and more generally, the extremely competitive attention economy of the internet) and that producers are too quick to write off a show as a failure after one season.

You essentially end up in one of two extreme cases:
- A show is stellar in the first season. It gets a lot of buzz and the platform is very happy. It gets renewed. It's very difficult to bottle lightning twice and the subsequent seasons just don't reach the same level of quality or buzz. Everyone is disappointed. The initial investment in the show doesn't pay off.
- A show is less than stellar in the first season. Executives culling the weak shows from the strong cancel it after one season. The initial investment in the show never pays off.

Really, it should be the opposite -- stellar shows should tell self-contained stories and end after the planned story is done rather than be forced to come up with new material because they're popular. Weaker shows should be given the chance to learn from their mistakes and grow.

I think ideally, what you want is to have middling shows that have promise in terms of premise/writing/characters but aren't necessarily BAM, the most high tension, thrilling, well-written (pre-existing) plot right out the door. But those middling shows get renewed, the writers develop experience writing the characters and the actors similarly get a feel of what they're doing with the characters; there aren't expectations that the subsequent seasons have to hit the high bar of the first season but rather the first season introduces the characters and premise and people understand and get more attached to them over time, and subsequent seasons have room to improve or weaken, rather than are basically guaranteed to be worse given the initial show-stopping season. By renewing the show, you build up an invested audience that can more than make up for the initial lack of buzz that a stellar show gets.

Also, we need more shows that are episodic rather than a long-running plot so that there is a clear status quo that people can comprehend over time and the show isn't constantly having to reinvent itself each season because the last cliffhanger completely changed the premise of the show or whatever... It's hard to invest yourself in a show if the characters/setting/plot are almost completely torn down and built up again each season, or if every single season involves preventing the destruction of the entire world or whatever. Like, just give the characters time to breathe.

[(Anonymous)]

I've watched the first episode of a lot of shows but there are few shows I've watched all the way through.

A few years ago I got into the habit of watching the first 2 seasons of a show and giving up on them. Just like....meh.

[(Anonymous)]

That's me with The Vampire Diaries.

[(Anonymous)]

Only watching shows after they're finished has much to recommend it. But one does lose out on the fandom when it's hot.