(no subject)

[bedlamsbard]

The problem with marathoning TV shows is that you end up going, "Well, that escalated quickly," because you just watched three seasons in a week and you're still back at season one characterization since these shows are not designed to be watched in a week.

Although I can only think of one show that I actually watched through and lasted long enough to get to that point, and I can't remember if I did the same thing when S4 of Fringe hit -- actually, come to think of it, remembering S4 of Fringe, I probably did. Maybe it is just third and fourth season slump. *ponder*

Comments

[juliekarasik]

I wonder if we'll see similar trends in further seasons of "designed to be mainlined" shows like oitnb and house of cards.

[bedlamsbard]

Hmm, I haven't seen either of those two, but yeah, I'm curious. It's almost more like a miniseries, but even those tend to be one episode a week, I think? And don't usually have multiple seasons.

I mean, I understand where these trends are coming from, since most TV shows of several seasons or more not only air over several years but are also produced over several years, so the PTB always feel like they have to be upping the ante and changing the stakes. Although I've noticed, with a lot of television, that even in the second season they tend to drop, or at least way, way downplay, a certain kind of story-telling + world-building -- Sons of Anarchy did it, Jericho did it (I will grant that Jericho had important out-of-universe reasons, but still), I think Friday Night Lights did but I can't quite remember, BSG did, Weeds did. Probably others that I can't think of off the top of my head did. And those are all very different shows, so I'm reasonably confident in saying it's a TV trend.