Miniseries The Mini-Season Trend

[Willie Oleson]

I prefer the mini seasons as they can be binged pretty quickly and we don't get those surplus characters showing up like you would in the old soaps

Ah, but New Dallas fans (or haters) also complained that it was too condensed in its pacing.
It's all fine with me, I can enjoy 10 good episodes or 30 good episodes.

Bottom line is, what the audience wants, the audience gets

It's not like we always have a choice. Nobody wanted The Amazing Spider-Man, and yet it happened.

 

[Alexis]

It's all fine with me, I can enjoy 10 good episodes or 30 good episodes.

You are just more inclined to get 10 good episodes than 30 though.
I mean it may have been good back in the 80s and 90s, but recently watching say, Melrose Place with it's mammoth seasons has been painfully bad. It's pretty dire really. Especially watched binge style. The burn out and fatigue. Then if you try and watch it like one or two episodes a week you just get bored.
The quality control isn't always there when seasons are long.

 

[Willie Oleson]

The quality control isn't always there when seasons are long.

Yes I guess it can put a strain on the creativity.

And then you have What/If and even those 10 episodes had boring sub-plots (e.g. the gay couple)

 

[Karin Schill]

I also really miss the long seasons. Probably because I am not a binge-watching person. I usually watch one episode/day of a show I like at the time on DVD. It's a pattern that has stuck with me since I was a teenager and the great soaps of the 1980s were being rerun at that pace. Sometimes I watch two episodes/day. At the most I've watched 5 episodes of Dynasty in one evening (to get rid of the Rita plot) but that was back in 2007.

So since I don't binge watch shows I don't like the shorter format. I'd rather like my shows to last longer and to get to know the characters better, which you do when the show has a slower more character driven focus rather than plottwists focus.

I miss the days when you could look forward to watch a new episode/week on TV. I still remember the happy feeling I had when it was Tuesdays and it was time for a new Desperate Housewives episode on Swedish TV a decade ago.

 

[Alexis]

Yes I guess it can put a strain on the creativity.

And then you have What/If and even those 10 episodes had boring sub-plots (e.g. the gay couple)

In this day in age every show has a gay sub-plot. And not all gays are exciting Willie.
My life is currently a boring gay sub-plot at the moment.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

I also really miss the long seasons. Probably because I am not a binge-watching person. I usually watch one episode/day of a show I like at the time on DVD. It's a pattern that has stuck with me since I was a teenager and the great soaps of the 1980s were being rerun at that pace. Sometimes I watch two episodes/day. At the most I've watched 5 episodes of Dynasty in one evening (to get rid of the Rita plot) but that was back in 2007.

So since I don't binge watch shows I don't like the shorter format. I'd rather like my shows to last longer and to get to know the characters better, which you do when the show has a slower more character driven focus rather than plottwists focus.

I miss the days when you could look forward to watch a new episode/week on TV. I still remember the happy feeling I had when it was Tuesdays and it was time for a new Desperate Housewives episode on Swedish TV a decade ago.

Hey @Karin Schill, I feel the same way. Standard length shows aren't meant to be binge watched anyway. There made to be watched once a week. Then you get to enjoy it for a lot longer! You also have time to think about what you've seen and wonder about what will happen next - so you get to use your imagination.

As you said, it's also great to have more time to have the characters develop. Remember when TNT Dallas tried to make 10 or 15 episode seasons? Everything went at such a fast pace that the character development just was not there! There was also no time to react to something, to have the meaning of a major event in the story really sink in. So it failed to have the impact it could have had.

The idea of binge watching doesn't appeal to me. If I tried to sit down and watch a ten hour season all in one or two days...I think I'd feel like a zombie. I need to be active, to create, to work...I can't just sit and watch entertainment for that long; I need to be actually doing something - not watching someone else doing something.

 

[Willie Oleson]

If I tried to sit down and watch a ten hour season all in one or two days

But Netflix suggests that I binge these seasons in one weekend, so who am I to disagree?

My life is currently a boring gay sub-plot at the moment

That's a story! It should be filmed in widescreen, in Finland. Lots of pensive close-ups, and maybe a psycho doctor sub-plot to spice things up a little bit. theme song by Sia. Done.

 

[tommie]

My life is currently a boring gay sub-plot at the moment.

 

[James from London]

Netflix suggests that I binge these seasons in one weekend, so who am I to disagree?

I usually save up a week's worth of EastEnders and then watch them all in one go as if it were a two-hour film. Conversely, I often find myself watching a film in half-hour daily instalments as if it were a soap opera. I realise this is wrong and I make a point of apologising out loud to the filmmaker whenever I press the pause button.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Conversely, I often find myself watching a film in half-hour daily instalments as if it were a soap opera

What a great idea! I suppose you announce the "previously, on" yourself?

 

[Emelee]

I sometimes feel like a dinosaur when I discuss TV with friends and colleagues. Some of my friends don't even own a TV anymore. Others only have streaming services connected to their TVs. Few people I know own a DVD or Blu-Ray player.

I still watch some series when they are broadcasted and I still buy lots of DVDs. I feel so alone even though I also stream because so few people watch live TV unless it's sports.


I don't see the streaming trend ending. I get that it's extremely viewer friendly. Just like streaming music where you get everything stored on the streaming company's cloud or whatever it's called. No need for physical copies and you can watch/listen anywhere in the world and at any time and for as long as you want. And skip over things you don't want to watch or listen to.

Question is: is streaming the big "it"? Will the future see something else, something even better than streaming? The video player, the discs and the internet were revolutionary. Will there be something even easier and smarter in 50 years?

 

[Toni]

I have get used to the shorter seasons too. Even the 17-18 episode seasons seem a little boring to me (thinking about "Scandal" or "Empire"). It´s a millennium thing: it wasn´t sudden but slow, therefore the change of format eventually worked for most people (at least for moi). I would have preferred TNT "Dallas" with 10-episode seasons (and less Mama likes scenes). But I think that it´s the HBO and Showtime series the ones that have proved that you can tell a story properly with just 10 or 12 episodes per season.

Not sure if you could bingewatch back then (early 00s, but then came Netflix et al and it´s like a formula that seems new but we all had used before, for instance, when re-watching supersoaps like "Dallas" or "Dynasty". 2 or 3 in a row work wonderfully well.

The new shows are stories that have the word "cliffhanger" printed on their scripts. They really have TO end on a cliffhanger between one episode and the next, or one season and the next. Also, this is why there are so many open-ended, canceled shows out there (SOS, #SaveTheOA, #SaveTheOA!). And instead of giving each worthy show a minimum of 3 or 4 seasons, they´d rather resurrect sitcoms that already stank 15 years ago...

​

 

[Kenny Coyote]

I would have preferred TNT "Dallas" with 10-episode seasons (and less Mama likes scenes). But I think that it´s the HBO and Showtime series the ones that have proved that you can tell a story properly with just 10 or 12 episodes per season.

TNT Dallas just wasn't good and changing the number of episodes wouldn't have made it good without other changes. If a show isn't good, 10 episodes is too much. Original Dallas is still loved by the people on the board and it had seasons of 28 episodes, even 30 and 31 episodes. It shows that if a show is good, having standard length seasons is better. I'd rather have more of something good than less of it. It was a lot to wait 4 months for the next Dallas season, so just imagine if we had had to wait 8 or 9 months in between each original Dallas season!

There are good shows currently being made that only run 10 episodes per season but do you like the 9 month wait for the next season?

Bottom line is, what the audience wants, the audience gets. Right now, audience wants streaming, high quality and short seasons.

I think the actors prefer the short seasons because it allows them to still make movies or other things, and that may explain their current popularity but the audience isn't necessarily getting what they want; they're getting what they're being offered. Some people have the idea that audiences only like fast, short paced things snd they don't have the attention spans for anything longer that goes into more depth. When Joe Rogan said he was going to have the interviews on his podcasts run for 3 hours, "experts" in the industry told him it wouldn't work. They told him people don't have the attention span for that. Joe Rogan knew that there are plenty of people who still have attention spans and he believed people would appreciate a product that goes into depth in a way that a shorter one couldn't. Joe Rogan's show became and still is among the most successful in the business!

 

[Toni]

TNT Dallas just wasn't good and changing the number of episodes wouldn't have made it good without other changes. If a show isn't good, 10 episodes is too much. Original Dallas is still loved by the people on the board and it had seasons of 28 episodes, even 30 and 31 episodes. It shows that if a show is good, having standard length seasons is better. I'd rather have more of something good than less of it. It was a lot to wait 4 months for the next Dallas season, so just imagine if we had had to wait 8 or 9 months in between each original Dallas season!

There are good shows currently being made that only run 10 episodes per season but do you like the 9 month wait for the next season?

Well, TNT Dallas wasn´t good as in OR Dallas good, but it was a show that, out of these forums, had a loyal but minoritary fan base who enjoyed the plots and the characters (all those videos on YT weren´t made by the TNT people or that Cider woman...). Oh and there also were "other" TNT Dallas forums out there...

In this forum, a lot of people (you know who you are) changed their mind about the show when it was canceled ("the wrath of the fans!"). We did nitpick it every week but had fun with it a lot, especially because the whole cast was splendid (with a couple of exceptions, who anyway were eye candy!). Too bad the old forum is gone to prove that.

Every one in Spain (or in Europe even!) who watched it, and I talked to, loved it up to the last episode. Are we dumber than the Americans? (Miss Piggy suggests you not to say yes!) No. But American shows hardly are aired here regularly in free TV. TNT Dallas bombed in open TV here because it was shown by one of those trashy channels which live from reality shows. But TNT España had aired it before.

To sum it up, it was classic American saga, disguised as a CSI show. IMHO, we Europeans took the best of it after realizing there still was some Dallas oil under the surface.

And no, I didn´t mind (and I don´t) waiting 9 months for a new season of a show that I love, because in the meantime, I can watch other series, devote myself to my hobbies, read, write and have (kind of) a social life. To be honest, having to stay home on Sunday nights in the 80s so I could watch "Dallas" ended being almost like an addiction. Now I rule my watching habits. And I love it!

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Are we dumber than the Americans? (Miss Piggy suggests you not to say yes!) No. But American shows hardly are aired here regularly in free TV. TNT Dallas bombed in open TV here because it was shown by one of those trashy channels which live from reality shows. But TNT España had aired it before.

My guess is that regarding European fans compared to American fans is that the biggest difference is European fans are better in at least one way - they remember artists they like (whether they are actors or musicians) and stay loyal to them for longer. Do you think that's possible? It seems like here, once a show or a musician is out of sight, or if what they do goes out of style (mostly a music thing) they are forgotten more quickly in America than in Europe or Japan where people tend to remember people they used to enjoy watching or listening to, even many years ago. So the strength of TNT Dallas was it still had original cast members playing roles people loved, even though the stories were not up to the quality of original Dallas.

I don't think American fans care what channel a show is on as long as they get that channel. We aren't loyal to channels - we're loyal to shows. TNT did a good job advertising to let people know Dallas was returning and 7 million Americans watched TNT Dallas' first night. The next week, half of them were gone and they didn't come back. They didn't forget the channel; they didn't like the new Dallas enough to keep watching it. After that the show kept losing fans fairly consistently, although at a slower rate. The ratings of the third season didn't justify keeping it for a fourth season. They really looked lost in the season without JR. The first two seasons had some of that original Dallas flavor but the third had very little if any of it.

 

[Emelee]

I think the actors prefer the short seasons because it allows them to still make movies or other things, and that may explain their current popularity but the audience isn't necessarily getting what they want; they're getting what they're being offered. Some people have the idea that audiences only like fast, short paced things snd they don't have the attention spans for anything longer that goes into more depth. When Joe Rogan said he was going to have the interviews on his podcasts run for 3 hours, "experts" in the industry told him it wouldn't work. They told him people don't have the attention span for that. Joe Rogan knew that there are plenty of people who still have attention spans and he believed people would appreciate a product that goes into depth in a way that a shorter one couldn't. Joe Rogan's show became and still is among the most successful in the business!

I think the audience is getting exactly what they (the majority) want. I just need to talk to my friends, collegues and pupils. My fellow language teachers can read novel after novel after novel, but when it comes to lenght, all seem to prefer shorter seasons because they don't drag the story out forever and ever.

So even people with long attention span and are trained to focus seem to prefer shorter seasons.

Of course there are gonna be a minority as well, those who like long seasons. But they ARE the minority.

Europe are already very familiar with short seasons. They've been successful here since forever. Americans have, thanks to cable network shows and Netflix, finally discovered all benefits of short seasons.

However, the big 4 dinosaurs (CBS, ABC, NBC & FOX) still do there 22 episodes per season. And look where that have gotten them! They don't stand a chance winning the big awards anymore. It's all because the quality is not as good when you need to hurry to write & tape 22 episodes per year. It's just not possible. I feel for them. All that hard work.

And yes, of course the actors don't want to be tied up forever to just one project. And of course they want to be part of excellent quality. So the series with shorter seasons get the best actors.


Those people who complained about soaps and how "nothing ever happened, they talk about the same thing they did three weeks ago" finally have plenty of series to choose among.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

I think the audience is getting exactly what they (the majority) want. I just need to talk to my friends, collegues and pupils. My fellow language teachers can read novel after novel after novel, but when it comes to lenght, all seem to prefer shorter seasons because they don't drag the story out forever and ever.

So even people with long attention span and are trained to focus seem to prefer shorter seasons.

Of course there are gonna be a minority as well, those who like long seasons. But they ARE the minority.

Europe are already very familiar with short seasons. They've been successful here since forever. Americans have, thanks to cable network shows and Netflix, finally discovered all benefits of short seasons.

However, the big 4 dinosaurs (CBS, ABC, NBC & FOX) still do there 22 episodes per season. And look where that have gotten them! They don't stand a chance winning the big awards anymore. It's all because the quality is not as good when you need to hurry to write & tape 22 episodes per year. It's just not possible. I feel for them. All that hard work.

And yes, of course the actors don't want to be tied up forever to just one project. And of course they want to be part of excellent quality. So the series with shorter seasons get the best actors.


Those people who complained about soaps and how "nothing ever happened, they talk about the same thing they did three weeks ago" finally have plenty of series to choose among.

The big four networks still make shows I like from time to time. They do win awards too. NBC's Friday Night Lights is one of the best TV series I've seen and it won an got nominated for a whole lot of awards. It didn't get big ratings though. I'm more likely to feel sorry for an amazing show like Friday Night Lights not getting big ratings. That's how they make money. That's the objective. TV is a business like anything else. Making money is what keeps a show from being cancelled. Winning awards doesn't pay for your new house or your kid's college tuition. The Emmy Awards aren't determined by any objectively measurable criteria anyway, the winers are determined by mere opinion. It's nice that Friday Nights won all those awards, it's a compliment, but I'm sure they would have rather had another 10 million people a week watching their show!

I liked ABC's Nashville. I don't know if they won awards or not. They had standard length seasons and had six seasons. I know six seasons isn't a whole lot, but some of these Netflix mini-season shows get cancelled a lot quicker than that. Brevity is no guarantee of quality. The only thing 10 episodes per season guarantees is the season ends more quickly than if it were a standard length season. A 10 episode series could still be cancelled after one or two seasons and a lot of them have been. Does anyone here know know what the longest running series is, either in cable TV or Netflix to have 10 episodes per season?

I like Paramount's Yellowstone and that is 10 episodes per season. I think it's the best series still being made. I don't know if it wins awards or not but it was the highest rated cable TV series of last summer. So they're making money and that's great. It means it won't be cancelled anytime soon.

Dallas is still the best show I've seen. 22 episodes would have been a short season for them but they're a legendary series - the most successful drama series of all time. I really don't see a link between the length of the seasons of a series and the quality, or a link between the length of the seasons of a series and the success it has. Both ways of doing things have produced successes and both have produced failures. 10 episodes per season is a very arbitrary number. Is there any particular reason so many of them decided on exactly 10 episodes per season? I suspect thee isn't anything scientific about it; it's just a nice even number.

I'prefer they write what is appropriate for the show instead of sticking to an arbitrary number. Different shows have different styles of telling stories and some need more time than others. More is not better and less is not better either. Precise is best. The precise number of episodes needed to tell the story the best way possible is ideal. That's probably why almost all the seasons of Dallas are different number of episodes. They wrote the number of episodes that best fit the story instead of holding themselves to some arbitrary number and limiting their potential success in the process.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

If a series is written well - or if it speaks to the viewer in a meaningful way - it doesn't have to be omnipresent to hold the audience's attention.

From my perspective, the longer the series is off air per year, the more important it becomes. It gains the two key factors of resonance and anticipation. Some of of my most intense and exciting experiences as a TV viewer have happened when a favourite series is off the air. Mulling over what's happened. Thinking about what might happen next. Looking forward to finding out. It can be quite an interactive experience, really. Yes - a nine month wait can feel like torture. But it's sweet torture.

I can't get my head round the preoccupation with quantity, or the philosophy that more = better. Our British soaps have suffered greatly from it, in my opinion. Most of them are putting out three times the number of episodes they were thirty years ago. Whether or not they've lost or gained in quality is impossible for me to say. The simple fact is that I find the sheer volume, and the level of time commitment watching one of those series would now demand, to be incredibly off-putting. Less is more, I think.

Europe are already very familiar with short seasons. They've been successful here since forever.

My mind immediately sprang to Howards' Way. Thirteen episodes per year for six years. It was lean and punchy. But it also had plenty of breathing room for character to take precedence over plot.

The precise number of episodes needed to tell the story the best way possible is ideal. That's probably why almost all the seasons of Dallas are different number of episodes. They wrote the number of episodes that best fit the story instead of holding themselves to some arbitrary number and limiting their potential success in the process.

I thought with Dallas the number of episodes was down to the network rather than the writers. And it was for financial reasons. Successful series raked in all that cash from advertising, sponsorship and whatnot. So the longer they ran per year, the more money networks made.

Who Shot JR? came about, I believe, because the network ordered two additional episodes. Even though the creative team had already told the story they wanted to tell for that year before the episodes were ordered. The "let's just shoot the bastard" legend is probably very telling of the desperation, pressure and frustration creative teams can feel when having to conjure up an increasing number of episodes to satisfy networks. Clearly, it's an example that great things can come from that pressure. But I suspect it's the exception.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

From my perspective, the longer the series is off air per year, the more important it becomes. It gains the two key factors of resonance and anticipation. Most of my most intense and exciting experiences as a TV viewer have happened when a particular series is off the air. Mulling over what's happened. Thinking about what might happen next. Looking forward to finding out. It can be quite an interactive experience, really. Yes - a nine month wait can feel like torture. But it's sweet torture.

I agree the resonance and anticipation that comes from being off the air for a while is good. I think it's important to have them in between episodes. That's one reason I don't binge watch. A weekly series isn't being created for that purpose - to be binge watched. It's made to be watched once a week. I need some time between each episode, but more isn't necessarily better. If one week between episodes is good that doesn't mean three weeks between episodes is even better. Likewise, regarding the time between seasons, I get all the resonance and anticipation I'm going to get in three or four months of waiting for the next season. Waiting nine months doesn't make it better and waiting eighteen months doesn't make it even better yet.

I can't get my head round the preoccupation with quantity, or the philosophy that more = better. Our British soaps have suffered greatly from it, in my opinion. Most of them are putting out three times the number of episodes they were thirty years ago. Whether or not they've lost or gained in quality is impossible for me to say. The simple fact is that I find the sheer volume, and the level of time commitment watching one of those series would now demand, to be incredibly off-putting. Less is more, I think.

More is better is an ethos-economic principle. It doesn't apply here. If it did, one episode every week of the year would be better than a 26 episode season and 365 episodes a year would be even better. Less isn't better either. Precise is best.

I thought with Dallas the number of episodes was down to the network rather than the writers. And it was for financial reasons. Successful series raked in all that cash from advertising, sponsorship and whatnot. So the longer they ran per year, the more money networks made.

It probably is decided by the network because all these series exist for financial reasons. If they're making, say, a million dollars of profit per episode, they'd rather run 20 episodes than 10 and make twice as much money. Anyone would, but you can run so many episodes a year that people would get sick of it and quit watching. Then the show gets cancelled and there is no income. The network should work together with the writers to figure out what number if episodes will be optimal for that particular season's story. Season 3 of Dallas was 25 episodes, ending with the one that set the record for most watched episode of a drama series. In season 4 they dropped back to 23 episodes. I doubt it was because they didn't want an extra two weeks of revenue. That they had the number one show on TV and they made two less episodes than the year before shows some restraint. The number of episodes per season varied and I think it should. Different stories take different amounts time to tell. I think it's limiting to set an arbitrary number of episodes per year and stick to it no matter what. No novelist would take an arbitrary number, say 365 - one page for every day of the year - and decide to write one novel per year, each one 365 pages long, except on leap years.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Waiting nine months doesn't make it better and waiting eighteen months doesn't make it even better yet.

But should they increase the volume of episodes for no other reason than to limit the time it's not on the air? Many of these new (and very expensive) shows are more focused (storywise) than what we got in the 80s.
I agree with Emelee that "we get what we want" in the sense of that we're not so patient and tolerant anymore. When a popular show does a stinker episode it goes viral. That's not good.

And then there's another thing: streaming services who offer their seasons as a finished product. They don't necessarily have to wait a whole year to release the next season.
And even if you have to wait a whole year, then what's the difference between binge watching 10 episodes in 2 days or 30 episodes in 6 days? There'll still be that 11 months and 4 weeks gap.
Don't expect me to believe that you would have stuck to 1-episode-per-week if they had offered OldDallas seasons as a finished product, ready to be consumed.
We're greedy, we're hungry. We take what we can (how very 80s villain of me!)