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Comment by iscrewyou | Hacker News Reader

I have this gripe that shows DO NOT need to run for 10 seasons. Breaking bad was a great example of a show that didn’t drag on, caught itself when it was starting to and pivoted and finished it strong. Now it’s a classic. Should there still be shows with 10 seasons? Sure. But most of them should be like 3-4-5 seasons. People lose interest. But if they knew that the only need to pay attention for 3-4 seasons, i think the shows could be more successful (for viewer attention span and for creators to work within a certain time frame and constraints).

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British shows mostly go the other way. All the classics seem to be one or two series where you wish they'd made one or two more, and series are often 6 or 8 episodes rather than the 10, 12 or "bleeding ridiculous" US series love. As our tv has got more American in style and business we've gained series that just won't die, even though so far past expiry date the corpse is rotting. (Big Brother? Apprentice? Celebrity anything...

The only downside to the shorter seasons is book adaptations often go at breakneck pace and take too many liberties.

As example, The Last Kingdom: First two series were BBC America and 8 episodes that covered 2 books a series. Pretty damn good adaption, pretty faithful to the books even with the brutal fast pace compression, and kept the real historical basis Cornwell is famous for. Maybe a bit tame and a little too "worthy" in places. It's King Alfred christianising early England and killing many heathen Danes, some "worthy" was unavoidable. :)

Third season is Netflix and no BBC, so instant 10 episodes a series, and it's unbelievably fucking shit. The gore, the dialogue, budget and plot all got turned up to 11, all the characters got entirely new personalities and the basis on the books got thrown out the window. Yet it drags and drags, because the highlights are constant now, so no contrast any more. Cornwell's famous historical basis laughed at and pissed on. Shark jumped multiple times. In wanting to make it more showy and mass market they killed any interest of the people who did watch it.

Another reason to think my Netflix sub is nearing its end.

Breaking Bad is not a great example, because the show was created with a defined length that fit the narrative. It had a certain beginning and and end in mind before it became a show. The studio wanted it to run longer, but the owners of the show said no.

The only major departure from Breaking Bad on paper and Breaking Bad in reality was Jesse Pinkman. He was originally only to be a bit character in one episode, but the showrunners liked Aaron Paul so much that he became a part of, and changed the tenor of the whole show.

> Breaking Bad is not a great example, because the show was created with a defined length that fit the narrative.

Is that really true? Do you have a source? From what I’ve read, Gilligan only said that as they reached Season 5. The studios didn’t know that it will be 5 seasons. maybe Gilligan had the idea in his mind since the beginning but that’s what I’m trying to say. Studios should only green light shows with a predefined length. And of course they knew the narrative. You could stretch the narrative to 10 seasons or keep it at 2. Which is the point. Keep it short.

The creators of Lost claimed they new exactly how that series was going to go, but watching it definitely felt like they were stringing things along to get to the 100 episode syndication threshold more than telling a fulfilling story.

I've been enjoying the limited-series shows, or shows that do not attempt to correlate multiple seasons together like Fargo. The first season of True Detective was done in the right number of episodes to get the story told without stringing it along. The studios forced a rushed second season that I pretend doesn't exist. HBO's Sharp Objects is another example of using just enough episodes to tell the story.

Makes me think of how amazing the X-Files would have been had they fully developed and then concluded the mytharc. They could have ended with full-on hard core sci-fi and exploring the political and social implications of alien disclosure, not to mention good and bad humans and aliens and all the rest.

I agree completely, I even wish seasons were shorter. Very often the start and end to a season is strong, but the middle is filler.

That's how I feel about Silicon Valley (the TV show), despite liking it a lot. It had a strong story in season 1 (and somewhat 2), and it has plenty of great jokes and relevant commentary. However, I cannot recall anything about the overall storyline past season 2 at all, because the rest of the seasons follow the structure of:

episode 1: set up the direction for some conflict/direction of the season.

episode 2 - episode n-1: a bunch of filler material with wild movements and swaps with no particular direction.

episode n: after all the wild moves, the characters and the story ended up back in pretty much the exact same place where it started.

If you care just about the story, you can legitimately skip all seasons after 2 and jump straight into the newest one without missing out on any actual story development, minus some minor references and newer characters. Which is a shame, because of how strong and directed the story in season 1 was.

It's not just losing interest. Unless you catch it at the very end, when all seasons are produced, each new season carries a startup cost - you'll need to re-acquire a lot of knowledge about the world it's in. (Or, colloquially, "Who the fuck are those people and why do I care" ;)

At some point, it's too much. It's becoming work. And if you learn/relearn an entire world, why not something you haven't seen before? So the series gets ditched.

"The West Wing" is the one that hurt me in my heart place. I stopped watching when the meteor was hurtling towards the planet and I was relieved I wasn't still watching the show when they started to bring in musical guests.

In my opinion, most shows would do better with far fewer seasons.

I just started watching it this year. The writing is fantastic. I'm mid-way through Season 4. I hear it drops off after that with Sorkin's departure. Should I just pretend seasons 5-7 don't exist?

I suggest braving through season 5, I personally enjoyed the remaining seasons, especially the last one. They never reach 1-4 levels though.

I've long had something like a 5 season rule. Sure, some "high concept" show are 1 or 2 seasons and done. And some manage to go longer especially if they replenish cast, locale, etc. But somewhere about 5 seasons--especially with traditional 20-ish show seasons--I just start losing interest.

I know there are fans who want shows to go on until the whole cast drops dead of old age, but I'd much rather have a handful of seasons even for shows I really like.

Breaking Bad spun off Better Call Saul, which I really hope they wrap up in Season 5. The Americans and Justified are two other shows that ended when they should have. Fargo is a fresh story every season, so it can probably go on a bit longer. Fleabag was a perfect two season show.

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