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A comment on Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too soon. Parent comment

Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by racl101 on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @09:48AM (#24776471)
So true. I don't get why American TV shows always need to be ran to the ground.

Like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory are shows that should've gone past their 8th season. The Office should've never had those abysmal last two-three seasons. That '70s show should've never had those abysmal last three seasons.

I always like it when creators and producers recognize when a show has run its course. This is why we have good memories of Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld stood to make something crazy like 5 million per episode if they had done a 10th season but he knew the show had run its course and ended it on a high note (something, btw, that was a plot point on an earlier episode).

Same with Breaking Bad, they knew that they had a story to tell and that it didn't need to drag on and they delivered some of the finest 5 seasons of television drama that one could ever ask for.

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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by sircastor on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @10:06AM (#24776652)
I watched an interview with Damon Lindleof recently where he talked about how the ABC execs wanted and expected to draw out Lost as Long as they could. When they were trying to negotiate down the show, the execs thought they wanted more money. They wanted to do 10 seasons and 6 was the compromise.

It was mind boggling to them that the producers only wanted to do three seasons

Link: https://youtu.be/ej3ftLjmYlA

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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by sbierwagen on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @01:47PM (#24779394)
Great anecdote. Damon Lindleof is a terrible person to deliver it, though. Lost could have run for 20 seasons with no meaningful difference, since they never actually had any idea how to resolve the plot.

Maybe he thought he couldn't have gotten away with dancing around the resolution for 10 seasons?

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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by srtjstjsj on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @05:33PM (#24781890)
And if LOST were only 3 seasons it might be remembered as a classic and not a train wreck.
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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by pwinnski on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @10:01AM (#24776607)
So you're complaining about shows that shouldn't have lasted beyond season 8, and holding up as a good example a show that ran 5 seasons, while the article is about Netflix canceling shows after one or two seasons.

Seems like there's a gap there.

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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by risorect on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @09:57AM (#24776563)
The old-school American network way of making (more) money was to run TV shows into the ground so that they had more episodes for syndication. HBO, Netflix, etc do not have that motivation.
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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by JansjoFromIkea on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @10:15AM (#24776744)
Netflix payed $500m for the rights to steam seinfeld last year, HBO paid even more the Big Bang Theory.

If you make a show that people will mindlessly put on for hundreds of hours, that's still worth an utterly insane amount of money for a very long time.

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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by matthewowen on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @10:29AM (#24776908)
More color on this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_episodes
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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by dagw on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @11:04AM (#24777307)
So true. I don't get why American TV shows always need to be ran to the ground.

It's a side effect of the weird way TV show syndication contracts (used to) work. Basically for various historic reasons you could charge cable networks more for showing re runs of shows with over 100 episodes than you could shows with less than 100 episodes.

So it often made long tern economic sense to push your show over that 100 episode line even if the last season or two where terrible and got terrible ratings on initial airing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_episodes

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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by Touche on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @10:07AM (#24776666)
I think you have some rose-colored glasses with Seinfeld. The post Larry David seasons are not nearly as good. They tried to mimic his style with over the top storylines but didn't know how to weave them together like he does and none of the jokes really landed. Seriously go watch a random episode from season 9, it's not very good.
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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by reader_mode on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @12:37PM (#24778580)
I recently watched the entire series again, you can see the show drop off last two seasons - and I commented on this before knowing about David leaving towards the end. But credit to them they didn't completely run it to the ground like most shows.
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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by ck425 on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @11:24AM (#24777580)
I personally really enjoyed the last two seasons of The Office US. Sure the transition was a bit dodgy but once it got it's stride it was enjoyable. Hell I'd even rate the final season as among the best overall.
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Re:Netflix is creating a problem by cancelling TV shows too ... by astura on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @10:36AM (#24776976)
Because running shows into the ground makes a lot of people a lot of money.
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