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It can certainly seem that way sometimes. Shows like The Handmaid's Tale have been circling the drain of their own premise for a few years now. A big part of it, I think, is that they want to keep their main cast for as long as possible, which limits the options of what can happen.
Give me a mini-series, or even an anthology series, any day.
I love the limited scope of British TV series. They even managed to do only a few seasons of Law & Order, for crying out loud.
It’s not a creative or artistic choice; British channels simply have minuscule budgets compared to their American counterparts.
And yet it often leads to more satisfying narratives.
Look at Black Mirror. The British seasons are some of the best TV ever made. The American (Netflix) seasons have often been meh or downright awful, and derivative of the original seasons.
I think it's for the best. Too much money in the US is spent on bullshit.
In any case, US versions of British series are almost certainly worse.
Shows like The Handmaid’s Tale have been circling the drain of their own premise for a few years now.
As far as I'm concerned, that show ended when the first season did (which corresponded with the ending of the book).
When I heard a season 2 was happening, I thought it might be based around the book's epilogue. Instead, it's the same story dragged out long past where it was supposed to end.
I think the shows with long term success either have multiple independent or semi-independent story arcs or they have a well defined story arc that lasts for the entire run of the show. The characters grow and change as the show progresses which keeps the audience interested.
Where they run into trouble is when the constraints built into the structure of the show limit the number of possible stories, but success leads to them trying to keep the show running after all possibilities have been used. At that point, the show becomes repetitive and boring.
Writing this, I'm reminded of the show, Scrubs.
Scrubs was an excellent show for the entirety of it's 8 season run. The concept allowed for a story arc that lasted the whole run, specifically the story of JD and his friends learning and developing as doctors from first year residents to attendings. There is a natural progression during that process that allows for individual growth of the characters and accommodates natural shifts in storylines to allow for new topics for episodes. In addition there are countless opportunities for different individual smaller story arcs to make each episode able to stand alone as it's own tale.
Because there was a built-in plan creating a structure for the life of the show, they were able to maintain quality and audience interest for all 8 seasons.
If the producers had foolishly tried to squeeze more seasons out of the show after they had exhausted the original concept, they would have inevitably failed. The result would have been a weak and pathetic shadow of the previous seasons and would have rapidly lost the patience of the audience.
Eh, Scrubs suffered a lot from trying to find ways of keeping the characters somewhat together and on the hospital. Also, even if not relevant to the topic, flanderization utterly fucked Scrubs from season 5ish onwards.
Flanderization? And in what way regarding Scrubs? Genuinely intrigued by your point.
I'll leave you with two links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Flanderization/LiveActionTV (search for Scrubs there)
Careful, don't get sucked into the TVTropes website, it's a black hole.
I think they're asking for examples of it. Not what it means.
I can think of a few with Dr Cox and Dr Kelso in the later seasons.
I don't agree with the example of Kelso. In the latter seasons he goes from being a horrible human to a somewhat empathetic and cool sage. I love it
Man, Scrubs was great. Still one of my favorite shows ever
Hot take: Scrubs Season 8 was weak. Dr. Cox as chief was lame, the new interns were lame, the Janitor’s wedding was lame.
Season 9 was actually a bit of a dead cat bounce.
Scrubs had its problems too. It just didn't matter as much because its a comedy first.
For example: Elliott took like 6 seasons to gain confidence. Probably because JD kept trying to get with her then being an idiot and breaking up.
Once they realize they have a potential cash cow on their hands they do whatever they can to ensure that they can milk it as long as possible. S1 has no gaurentee of being a hit when its made so show producers put their all into crafting an enjoyable show. Once it becomes purely about extending its life as much as possible. Usually turning the story to crap in the process. I call this 'the Dexter effect"
Sounds like enshittyfication for series.
You see it pretty clearly with Stranger Things. In S1 each character has a specific purpose or role they fill in the story to back up the themes the show wants to explore, and they excel at that role. S1 is great, and they weren't expecting to get an S2. But they did.
Now those same characters, with their specific roles? Well now they need to change (because you're telling a different story), and they aren't a super great fit for the new roles they have to play. It still kinda works, but the show's themes become muddled and you're banking a lot on the audience's love of the characters now. Still a success.
Now we get to S3 and we have to change the characters' roles even more! Entire storylines from S2 have now gone to waste, and many characters are far from their initial roles and don't feel as interesting or compelling as they used to be - because they were never meant to get this far. They're cogs jammed into new and unfamiliar spaces to try and get this machine to keep running. And it lurches and jerks its way forward, but it's a far cry from the efficient, effective show it was in S1.
Stranger Things doubly suffers because it's horror. In the first season, neither the characters or the audience know what's going on. The monsters are new and scary. The concepts are new and scary. The first season is incredible because it's all unknown, and because there's an almost cosmic horror quality to it.
However, by the end of the first season, both the characters and audience are experienced. The monster has been revealed and killed and, while it was tense and scary, the characters and audience know what to expect next time. The upside-down has been revealed and, while there's a lot about the idea left to explore, there's and understanding of what it is, how it works to some degree, how it's linked to the real world, etc. Everyone has knowledge and experience. And with knowledge and experience, the horror dissipates.
So where do they go from there? Well all they can do is to make bigger, scarier concepts or to throw more of the same at the characters. More of the same can make for good action - see Aliens - but the horror element just doesn't work any more, and it loses a sense of intimacy that a single monster brings. So the only way to try to maintain that feeling of horror is to go bigger and scarier.
Of course, the issue of intimacy remains. How do you have a huge, scary monster - far bigger and scarier than the first one - while still keeping it feeling both personal and intimate to our characters and having it feel "beatable"? And, well, you can see how Stranger Things struggled with that in season 2.
It's interesting that you bring up Aliens because it's a great example of how a character with previous history can fill a new role effectively, exploring different themes than in previous installments of a story.
But it also highlights the need for major changes - Ripley is the only carryover from Alien, and her character wasn't really fully fleshed out in the first movie, so they had room for her to be whatever they needed her to be in a follow-up. She's not a bad character at all, but she doesn't need a whole character arc to fulfil her role. That's not the case with most TV series because having thin protagonists at the end of a season generally doesn't make for compelling or satisfying TV.
Aliens also works because they introduce new elements to the horror - the thought that there's an intelligence directing the Xenomorphs is terrifying, and the threat it poses to life on earth is almost cosmic horror in its scope. You see that Stranger Things tried to take the same tack, but it was bogged down by its own lore and the limitations and having to work with a whole cast of characters who are experienced in fighting this very threat.
S4 was less of a mess than S3, and the worst parts of S4 were the cleanup from S3 — namely, the Hopper/Russia plot.
S4 could have leaned much more into the "Satanic Panic" theme. Dig into the "spiritual warfare" literature of the period — Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness (1986) or the Mike Warnke "Satan Seller" scandal (exposed in 1985).
I like the idea that a lot of series are repeating Act II over and over. I had never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense.
Showrunnners are never absolutely sure how many more seasons they'll get. If a show is popular, they could end up having to continue it after a conclusion. Or the show could be popular but corporate priority could be elsewhere, and they'll be forced to wrap up promising storylines quickly. Even for shows that announce they have plans for a beginning, middle and end, it's possible that they'll be cancelled before end planned ending, or else have to stretch after the ending has been reached. Safer is to try to just coast along, being non-committal about major plot elements, until something happens that pushes the show to resolve things.
Some of my favorite tv shows' first season is usually the worse. Then the plotlines get better until the second to last season and things resolve. By the final season, the last few threads get resolved and the story ends.
You see that a lot for sure. One show that stands out in my mind of continually moving the plot forward is Breaking Bad. The 'villain' changes throughout the show, Walt has an evolving relationship with Skylar and Walt Jr, and motives change as well for Walt and Jesse. Completely different show from beginning to end.
SPOILER: it's a well known fact that season 1 was shortened due to the last writers strike and had that not happened Jesse would have been killed off at the end of the season. This show very well could have suffered the same fate OP prescribes to most shows since Jesse is so pivotal to the shows overall success. So maybe we should look for shows who's first season is currently being cut short by this writer's strike and that will be the next great show.
Ultimately, the primary satisfaction of storytelling comes from the story ending.
You can do that episode to episode, season to season, etc. I feel like the best shows balance by having plot archs and character archs that can happen independently of each other. That way each episode or two can close one kind of arch while opening another. Because they are different kinds of problems, they're less likely to conflict, giving you the sense of closure you crave while also creating a sort of cliffhanger.
That's really hard to do well though, especially over time. And usually expensive.
A lot of shows start with 2-3 seasons of concepts in mind, and hope to get picked up for more. At that point it gets exponentially harder to go on without detracting from what you've already built.
I'm glad that most streaming platforms are starting to see value in shows with a fixed ending in mind, it just makes for better storytelling.
"final season is announced and they wrap up the show"
Bro must be from 1995 or some shit. Since when does a show get an actual ending these days?
Ted Lasso (announced it would be three seasons at the beginning and stuck with it)
Succession
Think we need more specific examples of what you’re watching, but I don’t think it’s just “American tv“—watched plenty of anime that is guilty of what you’re describing.
Plot creep is real, just look at any webcomic that’s been going for more than 3 years. Looking at you (lovingly, c… years ago?) Questionable Content.
Really great shows have a broader plot premise and are free to build new storylines and character arcs each season. As YoBuckStopsHere said, some great shows build up and grow overtime - think Breaking Bad, Parks and Rec. Both shows start off slower, focus on character building in the earlier seasons. Then they become plot focused later on.
Other shows have the flexibility to create new story arcs so each season almost stands on its own but they still stay within the larger overarching premise, example - The Great, Game of thrones (although they really gave up at the end)
I think good shows have a plan for how to get to the end and mediocre shows do as OP described - have a beginning and end planned and not much in the middle. I don't think all shows are stuck in Act 2, but it does say something that the ones that aren't stuck there stand out that much more
Some shows do a better job than others of having a satisfying arc in every episode. The Boys comes to mind in the sense that every single episode has a cool, self-contained story that gets resolved by the end of the episode, as well as an overarching story that spans the season.
Funnily enough, The Boys came to my mind as a negative example. It feels like every season hints at big things coming, but then the finale just kinda resets everything without those big things actually happening. And then the next season starts with them having to get the gang back together again.
I largely enjoyed the most recent season but the finale killed any excitement I might have had for the next season. The finale really avoided resolving anything at all, and basically undid as much as it was possible to undo.
I suppose it's the natural result of wanting to keep the show on as long as possible, when you've only got one good idea for the story arc. You need a lot of filler.
I'd like to see more shows done in the style of Babylon 5, where the creator had the whole 5 years written out from day 1. There was very little in the show that felt like filler or treading water.
Which also may explain why books are being brought to TV more frequently these days. But, TV showrunners have a bad habit of taking a good novel and totally mangling it in the translation to TV, so it's not a guaranteed win.