New streaming TV shows ask for a 20-30 hour time commitment. Unlike network TV, you will often be binge-ing alone and may never even get a pay-off (or the pay-off will suck).
Came to this post with the post-cliffhanger clarity of Severance S2's last episode... Wish you had written this in Jan and saved me 20 hours of my life. I thought Season 1 was terrific and expected Season 2 to answer all the questions they had asked. But like an engineering student in a midterm test, they seem to be pushing all the important questions to the end hoping for a miracle.
Loved the explanation for WHY this is happening – I've been noticing a lot of Netflix shows, even Sitcoms turning to heavy exposition, like "I literally spent all of my time working on this Robotus AI and now you're going to give credit to the guy on the team who did nothing?" As a guy who doesn't multitask when watching this stuff or watch things 'on the background', I was baffled, like "Why are you explaining to me what's going on? I'm literally seeing it!" But maybe I'm not the target audience.
Thanks for the read, Adhithya! Agreed on the Netflix sitcoms. My wife watches them a lot and I'll catch a lot of dialouge in the background. Every now and then, it's such a specific plot point and i'm like "huh?" weird. But totally makes sense based on the supposed script notes.
Great read, Trung. Sums up why i only pay for apple and hbo
my observation in the past decade is that every creative media outlet has gone through this (music, film, now tv), and i think your bit on youtube “if used properly” applies to every media outlet we have
taste is the new skill, and is going to continually become more important in this age of abundance and democratization of everything
Thanks for the read, Boona! Agreed with "used properly". Dosage makes the poison! Be reasonable and curate and can find good stufff almost any platform.
I've observed that students of film, or wine, or art, or programming languages morph into an expert mentality. Deep knowledge can lead to a sense of "having seen it all" with common examples. This creates a drive for novelty and the thrill of discovering something truly unique. Advanced jazz aficionados eventually get into Cecil Taylor, for instance, which is just unpleasant noise to casual fans. Trung, dude, you have overindulged in entertainment, become such an expert and master of consumption that you may disdain us who are mere amateurs.
Thanks for the read Ted! I think you may have misinterpreted main point of piece. It's not an auter/"student of the arts" argument (which I couldn't even make). It's literally "streaming TV is wasting our time and here are technological/economic/business model reasons" why this is the case.
If you consider the old episodic format (e.g. Star Trek TNG, Firefly, Frasier), because of the lack of watching on demand, they had to make each episode a thing. Because you might miss it. Now and again they could throw a two part episode like Best of Both Worlds at you and you'd cancel everything and make sure you were at home for the second part, but they couldn't do it often. It forced complete storytelling. Each episode had to be a story. Some of them were bad, but there were interesting ideas and stories like Darmok.
I slightly disagree with Tarantino on this because there are memorable TV episodes. I think Once More with Feeling, The Body and Hush from Buffy. At least a handful of Blackadder and Fawlty Towers episodes. Most of Spaced. Some TNG and some episodes of The Orville.
The only long-form TV that I have loved is S1 of Heroes and Breaking Bad. The first series of Heroes was like X-Men but with an unfolding mystery. Small pieces of information were given that made no sense and were gradually revealed. And I never felt like Breaking Bad was padding itself. It felt like it was a complete story, all building towards the end.
The other things I tried are really not "must sees". The Battle of Algiers is a must-see. Casablanca is a must-see. Star Wars, Close Encounters, Singin in the Rain, North by Northwest, Hot Fuzz, Clueless, Throne of Blood and Goodfellas are "must-sees". Very little TV is a must-see, because it's made as a short-term disposable product.
Came to this post with the post-cliffhanger clarity of Severance S2's last episode... Wish you had written this in Jan and saved me 20 hours of my life. I thought Season 1 was terrific and expected Season 2 to answer all the questions they had asked. But like an engineering student in a midterm test, they seem to be pushing all the important questions to the end hoping for a miracle.
Loved the explanation for WHY this is happening – I've been noticing a lot of Netflix shows, even Sitcoms turning to heavy exposition, like "I literally spent all of my time working on this Robotus AI and now you're going to give credit to the guy on the team who did nothing?" As a guy who doesn't multitask when watching this stuff or watch things 'on the background', I was baffled, like "Why are you explaining to me what's going on? I'm literally seeing it!" But maybe I'm not the target audience.
Thanks for the read, Adhithya! Agreed on the Netflix sitcoms. My wife watches them a lot and I'll catch a lot of dialouge in the background. Every now and then, it's such a specific plot point and i'm like "huh?" weird. But totally makes sense based on the supposed script notes.
Haha, yeah it's weird. Btw, are your DMs open? Messaged you yesterday about something I'm working on
You watch TV for the memes? for "banger" quotes?
We are not the same.
Thanks for the read Swag. I'd say the memes and banger quotes are like 4% of the article.
Great read, Trung. Sums up why i only pay for apple and hbo
my observation in the past decade is that every creative media outlet has gone through this (music, film, now tv), and i think your bit on youtube “if used properly” applies to every media outlet we have
taste is the new skill, and is going to continually become more important in this age of abundance and democratization of everything
Thanks for the read, Boona! Agreed with "used properly". Dosage makes the poison! Be reasonable and curate and can find good stufff almost any platform.
Great Article! We all became addicted to Streaming Content without realising over the years.
Check out ZeroZeroZero: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8332438/
Its an 8 Episode MiniSeries in the style of Sicario/Narcos/Gomorrha
You will love it!
Thanks for the read and reccod Dan! That is just my length lol
Awesome one Trung, fully agreed on this. Now I have the perfect comeback for all my coworkers demanding I catch up on Severance!
Hahaha, Thanks Richard and please do share when they ask.
I've observed that students of film, or wine, or art, or programming languages morph into an expert mentality. Deep knowledge can lead to a sense of "having seen it all" with common examples. This creates a drive for novelty and the thrill of discovering something truly unique. Advanced jazz aficionados eventually get into Cecil Taylor, for instance, which is just unpleasant noise to casual fans. Trung, dude, you have overindulged in entertainment, become such an expert and master of consumption that you may disdain us who are mere amateurs.
Thanks for the read Ted! I think you may have misinterpreted main point of piece. It's not an auter/"student of the arts" argument (which I couldn't even make). It's literally "streaming TV is wasting our time and here are technological/economic/business model reasons" why this is the case.
Bet, but not everyone is all logical and Vulcan about wasting time - ty
If you consider the old episodic format (e.g. Star Trek TNG, Firefly, Frasier), because of the lack of watching on demand, they had to make each episode a thing. Because you might miss it. Now and again they could throw a two part episode like Best of Both Worlds at you and you'd cancel everything and make sure you were at home for the second part, but they couldn't do it often. It forced complete storytelling. Each episode had to be a story. Some of them were bad, but there were interesting ideas and stories like Darmok.
I slightly disagree with Tarantino on this because there are memorable TV episodes. I think Once More with Feeling, The Body and Hush from Buffy. At least a handful of Blackadder and Fawlty Towers episodes. Most of Spaced. Some TNG and some episodes of The Orville.
The only long-form TV that I have loved is S1 of Heroes and Breaking Bad. The first series of Heroes was like X-Men but with an unfolding mystery. Small pieces of information were given that made no sense and were gradually revealed. And I never felt like Breaking Bad was padding itself. It felt like it was a complete story, all building towards the end.
The other things I tried are really not "must sees". The Battle of Algiers is a must-see. Casablanca is a must-see. Star Wars, Close Encounters, Singin in the Rain, North by Northwest, Hot Fuzz, Clueless, Throne of Blood and Goodfellas are "must-sees". Very little TV is a must-see, because it's made as a short-term disposable product.
"As a blanket policy for 2025, I implemented a “no new streaming TV show” policy."
Call it "The Firefly Rule".
Thanks much
Hi Trung, kindly check your inbox. Thanks