Isn't this an American thing where TV/movie things are primarily for money making?
I mean the British Office had 2 seasons and 12 episodes. The US version had 9 seasons and 200 episodes.
I didn't watch The Office, so I don't know if the US version got worse towards the end, but in general in the US they keep making episodes while the series is profitable, regardless of quality and in the end they usually drive it to the ground.
They just can't stop until there is no money in it. Most of the time they can't end a TV series on a high note.
In short, I appreciate the story far more than the story telling. The longer the story is, the bigger the payoff needs to be.
Perhaps that's the difference between British and Japanese audiences?
DVD/Bluray sales usually dictate if a show gets renewed. Also most anime are adaptations from light novels or manga so the expectation is that they all drive up sales for one another. Then we have things like figures, video games, pillow cases, etc. This is why One Piece has over 850 episodes spread over at least a dozen box sets and 900 manga chapters collected in 60 volumes.
200 episodes was probably too much, yet 12 episodes would not be enough.
It's all subjective, of course, but personally, I've found SU to be rock solid. The main arc is there, but the stand alone eps are just as valuable for that show. Not every episode of a show that doesn't obviously advance the main story arc is 'filler'. Some are just trying to tell a story. I notice that people tend to label those kinds of stand alone stories "filler" if they didn't like them.
I say this because I'm guilty of this kind of thing, too.
And that's not to say there AREN'T episodes of shows that are just spinning their wheels burning off quotas-- see the Arrowverse for lots of THAT. Oof.
This is why I've been increasingly becoming a fan of 13 episode seasons for some shows. Tell a good story. Get the hell out. Or if you just have 23 episode seasons, break it in half. Tell two solid arcs. Maybe bridge them if you must.
So-called Flanderization
South park is still funny. Last season was great (not sure about the current one)
Oakley and Weinstein stood down as showrunners after
season eight because they "didn't want to break [the
show]." Oakley said: "We always said we'd never do a
joke that we'd done before."GoT however has gotten much worse the closer they got to running out of source material. The last season I watched had incredibly stilted dialogue and relationships (Jon going rambo all the way to the north with no plan and then falling instantly in lust with Danny) and the pacing was hyperspeed compared to the previous seasons. If anything it feels like they really want to end it but have run out of room so they are just rushing it.
This stuff exists on a spectrum. The near end in my opinion are shows like GoT and Breaking Bad have long narratives to tell and imo they use the time well.
Further away are shows like Archer which were amazing when they came out but tend to drag on without having a significant story to tell.
The far far end is exemplified best by animes like Dragonball or Hunter x Hunter which go ON AND ON AND ON and somehow never seem to go anywhere.
The filler episodes are some of my family's favorites, however. I think the comparison is a bit premature compared to something like the Simpsons where every episode pretty much can stand alone.
I really dislike TV/Anime that never ends, seems to be the modus operandi for pretty much every mainstream show despite how bad the quality gets after 2-3 seasons.
Simpsons is a great showcase of the homogenization that every sitcom will go through given enough time. It starts out as a comedy with some wholesome family moments to bring it together but eventually every character is distilled to their most basic formula Homer -> Idiot who causes events to happen Bart -> Same as above Marge -> Straight man / Voice of reason or Satire of moralistic conservative adults depending on the situation Lisa -> same as marge but liberal piñata
Old episodes had genuine moments where you saw them become closer as family, now every episode is a hodgepodge of nonstop comedy.
Family Guy also went through this, especially after they got revived. The early episodes focused on the trials of the family with some goofy humor peppered throughout (Peter getting fired, Louis dealing with being a bored housewife) but now its just nonstop comedy.
Once you get syndicated it's not about making good episodes just churning out 26 more a year and cashing in that paycheck.
Even Steven Universe which has a very straightforward story with an end planned feels bloated with a bunch of filler episodes and lazy character development.