"fluff" padding is much worse than "can we get an extra season or three out of this show", IMO.
[ EDIT: d'oh, I meant to write this in reverse, as "fluff padding is much less bad than .... oh well. ]
I prefer stories to be told that already have a beginning, middle and end at their outset, not just some fingers-crossed "we might get 5 seasons, we can decide how it unfolds once we get to season 3" stuff that has dominated way too much TV.
Granted, the purely episodic shows (e.g. Star Trek, LA Law and the like) are immune to this, mostly.
But give me more True Detective, where the story ending is known before they even start filming, and the only question is "do we get to try another story?"
>"fluff" padding is much worse than "can we get an extra season or three out of this show", IMO.
You're kind of close. They would fluff the seasons to get the episode count to 100 as soon as possible. 100 episodes was the magic number to qualifying for syndication. Syndication is where the money used to be made on content. Ask Jerry Seinfeild or the cast from Friends. Syndication is no longer the holy grail. You are making your content for the syndication platforms from the beginning now. This has allowed for the freedom to use enough episodes to tell your story correctly, and then getting out of the way. No more bottle episodes.
I think you're discounting the in-season requirements that the networks had. They would usually require on the order of 23 episodes for a season, and sell advertiser time during those episodes months in advance. Hence the prevalence of "clip shows": we promised the network x episodes, we only really have been able to make x-1 full episodes, so let's create an episode that is mostly clips from other episodes.
Lost was a microcosm of everything that is wrong with the traditional network-tv system. And it’s a shame, because some of the storytelling was remarkable.
I never understood why people stuck with Lost. I stopped watching about 3 episodes into season 3 when it became obvious that the writers where just making shit up with no attempt at an explanation. Season 2 was really good, added a lot of mystery and it started to feel like something was happening, then season 3 went off a whole other tangent. At that point I turned to my wife and said “they’re dead, this is all just made up from one season to another. You can watch it without me in the future.” And guess what, 7 series later it’s revealed that they were all dead. No shit.
I might not have been the target audience though. People often go nuts for JJ Abrams and I’ve honestly hated almost everything of his I’ve watched. So I’m likely just not the kind of person he is targeting.
I think I stopped midway through Season 2 when they started going off on weird tangents and it became obvious this was going to be stretched out to make more money.
But maybe it was because I was young, and the format was new to me, but the first season did capture my interest.
Growing up as a kid, the original Battlestar was just this cool sci-fi series with robots. I didn't know about all of its religious overtones. The rebooted version was dripping in it, and got tiresome.
[ EDIT: d'oh, I meant to write this in reverse, as "fluff padding is much less bad than .... oh well. ]
I prefer stories to be told that already have a beginning, middle and end at their outset, not just some fingers-crossed "we might get 5 seasons, we can decide how it unfolds once we get to season 3" stuff that has dominated way too much TV.
Granted, the purely episodic shows (e.g. Star Trek, LA Law and the like) are immune to this, mostly.
But give me more True Detective, where the story ending is known before they even start filming, and the only question is "do we get to try another story?"