Remember “Severance”? Remember “Stranger Things”? Today’s leisurely TV schedules are taxing memories and changing the experience.

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This is the Ent-like pace at which TV moves these days. The “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” took nearly as long to come back for its second outing. “Severance,” likewise a member of the debut class of ’22, will return in January, almost three years since we last saw it. The teen drama “Euphoria,” whose second season began in January 2022, will start shooting a third season … sometime in 2025. By the time it airs, one assumes its characters will be eligible for Social Security.

More and more, rejoining a favorite series is like trying to remember the details of high school trigonometry. Which hobbit did what to whom? What did they do all day in that “Severance” office again? Was “Stranger Things” set in the 1980s, or was it actually made then?

  • Chahk@beehaw.org
    6·
    3 months ago

    They are quite capable of pumping out an episode each week if all you’re after is quantity. Quality takes time.

  • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    Eh, I got used to it between seasons of Venture Brothers, Deathklok, and other great shows that had myktiple year gaps in seasons. Found it was worth the wait, which has been true with more recent slow drip offerings as well.

      • averyminya@beehaw.org
        4·
        3 months ago

        I was never huge into firefly, then I tried rewatching it years and years later to give it another chance, before the stuff about Whedon and Fillion, and it just felt so… Not right. Couldn’t place why though.

        Then the stuff came out and it clicked - it was completely phony. Any pretense of feminist lenses are flipped into the male gaze, some sort of betrayal that’s exponentially worse.

        I liked Serenity more, but now the whole thing is just tainted in general. That’s part of the tragedy of firefly. It could have been something great, but it was written by a misogynist which muddled an otherwise well put together world of conflict by turning it into a really, really weird fantasy. I never took Morena’s role (actor who played Inara) to be created with good intentions. It was always creepy to me, then the events that ousted him made it all very clear why I had always felt this way.

        Cause the dudes a creep and writes like one. Buffy is the only thing outside of marvel stuff that I can watch, and even those aren’t safe from his sham.

        • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
          4·
          3 months ago

          All of this. Plus the Lost Cause/pseudo-Confederate undertones to the series really do not sit or hold up well

          • averyminya@beehaw.org
            3·
            3 months ago

            Man I had completely forgotten about that aspect until I read your comment and it all came flooding back.

  • millie@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    I kinda like it. It’s better for some shows than others, but like, look at Curb Your Enthusiasm. It would pop up every now and then, only to fade back into the aether for a few years, then come around again. It never felt forced, or like it wasn’t within its own continuity when it came back. Some time just passed, and that was alright. I feel the same way about Red Dwarf. It comes, it goes, it comes back again. We love it.

    You can’t force it. It’s one thing if delays are because of studios or rights holders blocking creators from getting their work out, but if it’s part of the natural process? The process is the product, and sometimes good work needs time to percolate, or ferment, or whatever metaphor you want.

    Don’t try!