TV Tuesday: Seasons and An Announcement

[yourlibrarian]

Do you prefer short seasons for your shows, long seasons, or no seasons at all, like soap operas that go on without a clear break? What do you consider the minimum number of episodes to make up an effective season of a TV show?

Also, an announcement! Starting January 12 the mods would like to kick off a weeklong rec fest. Although people do rec shows on other days, we thought a tagged recs event would help newcomers find shows they might enjoy more easily.

So for 7 days of genres we'll have Sunday: Family viewing/Children's Shows, Monday: Comedies, Tuesday: Dramas, Wednesday: Sci Fi/Fantasy, Thursday: Mysteries or Horror, Friday: Romances, and Saturday: Miscellaneous (any shows you don't think fit the other categories!)

We hope you'll put together some recs to share over the next month -- they can be shows you've discussed before in other tv_talk posts, new things you've just tried out, or shows others have recced before!

Comments

[naushika]

Nothing beats the classic 22-24 episode season of the Old Days of TV. Current TV seasons are way too short for me. Not enough time to marinate in the universe, or to let the characters breathe and get to know them outside of mission-critical plot elements. I still get enjoyment from some modern TV shows (some great stories are being told) but they just don't stick in my brain like a long season does. I think because for me, what I love about TV is the characters, and with long seasons I spend a lot of time with the characters.

[sweettartheart]

I do enjoy letting a show have a longer time to breathe and let things play out, but that's probably because I nearly always stick with a program for its characters. It's nice to have more time with them.

[dirty_diana]

I don't have much of a preference - I like hanging out with favourite characters for longer, but I also enjoy a clearly told limited episode narrative arc. The worst of all worlds is when it's a short season that doesn't really say anything for a whole bunch of the middle part.

[ecto_one_spengler]

Personally, I prefer limited series / miniseries formats as oftentimes the episodes will be much longer and there is overall less season clutter. Then again I have ended up finding myself enjoying long seasons with long episodes as long as it is interesting and meaningful.

That being said, it has to have REALLY good plot, characters or music to keep me there. Otherwise it may be not worth it for me.

Also I would be excited to give recs now that I have seen a few more things, hehe!

[feurioo]

A couple of years ago, a 22-episode season seemed ideal to me. Then I started a new job, got busier, and now the prospect of such a long season with an episode running time of 40+ minutes makes me tired just thinking about it. I quite like 12-episode seasons now. However, I don't mind longer seasons if we're talking about shows with shorter episodes. Comedies, for example.

I love the idea of a rec fest! At one point, I was thinking about doing a post where people could name a show and the aspects they loved about it, and people would recommend similar stuff. But I wasn't sure if that would work in a random post that only a few people see.

[rogueslayer452]

Considering the current state of television these days, I much prefer longer seasons. While it does depend on the show, the 22-24 episode per season was honestly perfect, and something I think most took for granted until we didn't have that as the standard anymore. Longer seasons guarantees just more material in general, giving more substance to the story, the characters, allowing the audience to spend time with the way things are unfolding rather than it being a race to binge-watch.

As for "no seasons at all" approach, TTRPG actual play shows like Critical Role definitely apply to this as their campaigns are ongoing and can last for years (each campaign has over 100 episodes, with each episode being around 4 hours long). It only works for this kind of story platform though, as I probably wouldn't have had the energy to continue on with watching such a show otherwise.

In addition to that, Asian dramas often don't have more than one season and their episode order can vary depending. Cdramas now have a max limit of 40 episodes, though previously it had been up to 60 or 70 episodes.

[shadowkat]

Depends on the show? Some shows fit a six to ten episode arc better, others need more time.
I love serials - which usually require a longer arc to build character and develop story, as do fantasy and sci-fi. However a good tight story told within six to ten episodes is wonderful.

In short, I don't really have a preference? I'm not a fan of the episodic style series, where it's basically a lot of stand-a-lone mystery/case/crisis/monster of the week, and the characters change in small bite-size snippets each season.

The minimum is six, preferably 10, I can kind of see why the requirement of 13 was in place for DVD releases. But I think 6-10 is the best minimum. Maximum 22 per season, unless it is a soap opera or serial.

[tinny]

Considering cdrama doesn't do more than one season at all (except for rare exceptions like Under The Skin (yay!)), I've kind of fallen out of the expectation for more seasons in the first place. cdrama of course makes things with 40/50 episodes and calls it a season instead. (That's also bad. As is the fact that they release everything at once or 4 eps at a time/per day.)

But, for everything except cdrama, my personal preference is 8+ episodes (no upper limit lol) with one ep per week. I'm okay with waiting a year for the next season. Coming back to a show you've loved before is one of the best things! Season premieres ftw!



I have three shows on my list that I have 'promised' to write rec posts for, so I guess I should get on that then! \o/ (I love this comm, thanks for running it - it does take effort to keep a place alive. <3)

[luvbarryfefe]

Looking forward to the rec fest!!

[bradygirl_12]

22-24 episodes are perfect.

Ha, ha, what would people do with 39 episodes per season as was the norm in the '50s/early '60s? 😝