In the age of streaming, we feel like we have two choices when it comes to watching TV. We can either binge-watch an entire season as quickly as possible, or we can binge-watch old-school shows with weekly episodes.
But in recent years, Netflix has adopted a different strategy for many of its most popular shows. Anyone who watches enough Netflix content will have noticed it by now.
The best Netflix shows — “Bridgerton,” “Cobra Kai,” “The Witcher,” “Stranger Things,” and most recently, “Emily in Paris” — have, at one point or another, enjoyed a two-season run. Instead of deleting an entire season, Netflix releases episodes in batches, volumes, or parts, and in my humble opinion, it’s time for that to stop.
Netflix Has a Pacing Problem
These days, it's not uncommon to wait two full years between new seasons of hit TV series, and the spread out of these shows softens that blow, at least a little.
Moreover, it is a publishing strategy that kind Both types of viewers can relate. If you're a binge-watcher, you can watch a handful of episodes, twice (or even three times). On the other hand, weekly viewers can space out their viewing accordingly, with less risk of seeing a season finale spoiled online. And releasing multiple episodes also allows shows to stay in the conversation a little longer, rather than disappearing from the public consciousness after a few weeks.
Thinking about it more cynically, I'm sure this makes sense for the streamer. If a show comes out in two halves, viewers who want to watch it as soon as it comes out have to have Netflix on both dates. That means Netflix gets at least two months of subscription fees from us if we want to watch things as soon as they come out.
With my cynical hat on my head, I think This This is the main reason why Netflix made this decision. It's about money, and I think it hurts the structure of a lot of our favorite shows. The first chapter of season 4 of “Emily in Paris” is the latest victim of this trend, as the first part ends unexpectedly in Gabriel's restaurant.
Elsewhere, I can't help but think that the wait for the return of “Cobra Kai” will be even longer because we had made a lot of noise around the Sekai Taikai tournament… but we still have several months to wait to see what will happen.
For many “Bridgerton” viewers, I would bet that big The appeal of the series is seeing the Bridgerton siblings' relationship develop. But for the third season, Colin and Penelope's romance was compartmentalized in the early episodes, with other issues of the show taking up more time in the second half as their love (temporarily) deteriorated.
Even the streamer’s biggest series, “Stranger Things,” has this problem. Season 4 was already a test of patience in itself — no TV show should have episodes that are longer than two hours — and frankly, knowing it was coming back with two super-long episodes that overstayed their welcome made me want to watch the rest of the season. less.
There are certainly times when the separate seasons worked well. Ending the first volume of “The Witcher” season 3 with Dijkstra ambushing Geralt on the cusp of Thanedd’s coup worked as a cliffhanger break. It certainly kept me coming back when the remaining episodes arrived, but I probably would have continued streaming if all eight episodes had been available at once, all the same.
I'm sure other viewers will argue that some of the other “breaks” I mentioned above were effective stopping points, and if you felt that way, great, I'm glad you enjoyed your viewing experience. To me, though, these breaks often feel awkward or stilted, and they detract from the overall pacing of their respective seasons,
I also don't think splitting your season into two or more batches really helps make things last longer. Anecdotally, I know people who just wait until the entire season is available before jumping in and finishing a season in one go.
Similarly, some of the top streaming services on the market continue to find great success with their weekly releases. If the show itself is worth watching, viewers will continue to watch it; “House of the Dragon,” which attracts a lot of viewers on Max, is a clear example.
Will Netflix Stop Splitting Its Shows?
The short answer is: no, probably not. The financial incentive to continue doing this with the biggest releases is obvious. I haven't even mentioned all the shows that have gotten the split-season treatment, and there's already speculation that future releases like the final season of “Stranger Things” and season 2 of “The Sandman” will be released in the same way.
Sure, “The Sandman” might just be the perfect show has treat it a little differently. When it comes to a graphic novel adaptation, creating shorter “volumes” might actually be a pretty effective way to bring these stories to life. And that brings me pretty neatly to my conclusion.
If Netflix East Determined to continue breaking their shows into bite-sized chunks, it would be nice if they structured these breaks a little more purposefully. Shorter seasons could be used to reduce the wait times between seasons while still maintaining anticipation between episodes, provided they are strategically placed. Otherwise, I suspect that any viewer who finds this practice as frustrating as I do will only grow more annoyed as the “problem” inevitably worsens.