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Post by MRPs_Missives on Feb 28, 2024 21:09:29 GMT -5
Ironically, I was talking to one of my con friends from the Chicago area about this time last night, and he and his wife were driving home from visiting family and got caught on the highway during the tornado watch there, and after he messaged me that he was ok and they had gotten home safely, I joked that I was glad he hadn't wound up in Oz...and then this morning we went through our own tornado scare. Weird karma or synchronicity at work it seems (or just a lot of common touch-points among those of us within geek culture). -M |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2024 17:25:43 GMT -5
I remember when TV Seasons were 20+ episodes.....Reacher is only 8?  Still liked Season 1 well enough to start Season 2 soon. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 6, 2024 10:19:44 GMT -5
I remember when TV Seasons were 20+ episodes.....Reacher is only 8? Still liked Season 1 well enough to start Season 2 soon. says "EIGHT EPISODES???" (*faints*)  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2024 10:55:12 GMT -5
Sherlock says "EIGHT EPISODES???" (*faints*)
The good thing is....it's only 8 so you don't have to commit the time to watch 20+ if you're only mildly interested but still want to see how it ends.
The bad thing....no one-off episodes, you have to watch every episode in sequence to get the storyline.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 6, 2024 19:47:05 GMT -5
20 shows a season has gone the way of the do-do bird.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2024 20:16:32 GMT -5
I much prefer classic television. My wife and I just binged the 1st season of Benson (over 20 episodes), 1st season of Magnum P.I. (18 episodes), first full 3 seasons of Dallas (particularly fun, over 20 episodes each, man they don't make moments like 'who shot J.R.' anymore), and now we're well into M*A*S*H (started at season 4 when Colonel Potter arrived, over 20 episodes per season).
They don't make shows like these anymore, I feel blessed to have so much great television on DVD.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2024 20:58:44 GMT -5
I much prefer classic television. My wife and I just binged the 1st season of Benson (over 20 episodes), 1st season of Magnum P.I. (18 episodes), first full 3 seasons of Dallas (particularly fun, over 20 episodes each, man they don't make moments like 'who shot J.R.' anymore), and now we're well into M*A*S*H (started at season 4 when Colonel Potter arrived, over 20 episodes per season). They don't make shows like these anymore, I feel blessed to have so much great television on DVD.
I like classic Dallas too. The 2012 reboot on TNT was also quite good (far more ribald too!) and also lasted 3 seasons. It was also sad because Larry Hagman died and this was 'incorporated' into the series with a J.R storyline...
But damn, 80 year old J.R. was as J.R. as ever....he's my favourite tv villain of all time.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 6, 2024 21:12:11 GMT -5
I much prefer classic television. My wife and I just binged the 1st season of Benson (over 20 episodes), 1st season of Magnum P.I. (18 episodes), first full 3 seasons of Dallas (particularly fun, over 20 episodes each, man they don't make moments like 'who shot J.R.' anymore), and now we're well into M*A*S*H (started at season 4 when Colonel Potter arrived, over 20 episodes per season). They don't make shows like these anymore, I feel blessed to have so much great television on DVD. I have a few classic shows from when I was growing up. Among them is the Odd Couple , The Partridge Family and the Batman TV series. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 6, 2024 21:19:25 GMT -5
With delivery platforms so watered down and costs high, it makes sense to do a smaller episode run, with tighter scripts and use your budget to its fullest extent, rather than try to cover filler episodes, to hit 20+episodes , or try to balance expensive episodes with cheaper ones. A sitcom, with a good premise and writers, can support a higher number of episodes; but, they tend to burn through writing staffs, doing that many episodes season after season. Mist staffs had high turnover after about 2 or 3 seasons,.. Plus, with that many episodes per season, you are more likely to start repeating yourself earlier on.
A dozen or less feels right, to me, and has sustained the UK viewership and other parts of the world, for decades. You can get the really good writers to produce more solid scripts and more of them and maintain the quality, and still tell stories that are part of longer arcs, if that is the format. For stuff like a Game of Thrones, you can contain your budget a little better and have a higher level of quality, overall, than go up and down and have to do episodes that are stuck in one setting, to save costs.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2024 21:21:51 GMT -5
I have a few classic shows from when I was growing up. Among them is the Odd Couple , The Partridge Family and the Batman TV series. I just added Bewitched to mine, and now I'm hunting down the comics....and 95% of them are in terrible shape damn.... |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2024 21:28:14 GMT -5
I like classic Dallas too. The 2012 reboot on TNT was also quite good (far more ribald too!) and also lasted 3 seasons. It was also sad because Larry Hagman died and this was 'incorporated' into the series with a J.R storyline... But damn, 80 year old J.R. was as J.R. as ever....he's my favourite tv villain of all time. I've been considering giving the reboot a shot just to see Larry Hagman reprise his J.R. role. My favorite TV villain as well. I have a few classic shows from when I was growing up. Among them is the Odd Couple , The Partridge Family and the Batman TV series. Those are great shows as well, I think the Odd Couple may have been one of the first nighttime comedies my parents let me watch, such good memories. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 6, 2024 22:17:42 GMT -5
A sit-com's season often ran 39 episodes in the old days, eventually dropping to 26. Reruns or summer replacement shows filled the schedule in the summer.
Even the hour-long shows ran about 32 shows a season back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Bonanza ran 430 episodes over 14 seasons; Leave It to Beaver had a six-season run and broadcast 236 shows; Dick Van Dyke lasted five seasons and there were 158 episodes.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 7, 2024 1:12:09 GMT -5
A sit-com's season often ran 39 episodes in the old days, eventually dropping to 26. Reruns or summer replacement shows filled the schedule in the summer. Even the hour-long shows ran about 32 shows a season back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Bonanza ran 430 episodes over 14 seasons; Leave It to Beaver had a six-season run and broadcast 236 shows; Dick Van Dyke lasted five seasons and there were 158 episodes. Yeah, but with only three networks and local UHF stations. You can't sustain the kind of viewership that would require that quantity of episodes. Plus, the networks were a bit less risk-averse, as were the studios. Once accountants and marketing people were running everything, you end up with homogenized pap, with a few pockets of quality, spread over a wide field. Plus, you didn't have home video alternatives, other than the few people who had home projectors to watch 8 mm loops and such. I grew up with that kind of thing, too; but, you don't have production companies like MTM, churning out quality shows, in large numbers, anymore. Or Mark VII, or Quinn Martin, or Desilu. HBO is probably the closest. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 7, 2024 1:23:10 GMT -5
I like classic Dallas too. The 2012 reboot on TNT was also quite good (far more ribald too!) and also lasted 3 seasons. It was also sad because Larry Hagman died and this was 'incorporated' into the series with a J.R storyline... But damn, 80 year old J.R. was as J.R. as ever....he's my favourite tv villain of all time. I've been considering giving the reboot a shot just to see Larry Hagman reprise his J.R. role. My favorite TV villain as well. I have a few classic shows from when I was growing up. Among them is the Odd Couple , The Partridge Family and the Batman TV series. Those are great shows as well, I think the Odd Couple may have been one of the first nighttime comedies my parents let me watch, such good memories. The Odd Couple was awesome! Between Gary Marshal writing and producing, Klugman and Randall on the acting (and the supporting cast) and Neil Simon's premise and characters, you just had a recipe for a great show, which could sustain itself far longer, but wisely chose to end when it did. Same was true for the Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore Show and Bob Newhart Show. All ended while on top and before they had outstayed their welcome. Wish some others would have learned that. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Are You Being Served ran for 10 series and a movie from 1972 (with the pilot) to 1985, with an average of 7 episode per season, over 10 years, from the same writing pair. That is a pretty good run and it is pretty consistent, from series to series, though it does suffer in later seasons, with cast changes. Fawlty Towers had 12 episodes of perfection. The British system allowed actors to do other things and come back for a new run of episodes and let the writers have a break to come up with new scripts. They were better able to keep casts together, over a long run and have more character-driven material. There are benefits and weaknesses in both methods and both reflect a specific set of circumstances, from financing to size of audience. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 7, 2024 5:03:09 GMT -5
I've been considering giving the reboot a shot just to see Larry Hagman reprise his J.R. role. My favorite TV villain as well. Those are great shows as well, I think the Odd Couple may have been one of the first nighttime comedies my parents let me watch, such good memories. The Odd Couple was awesome! Between Gary Marshal writing and producing, Klugman and Randall on the acting (and the supporting cast) and Neil Simon's premise and characters, you just had a recipe for a great show, which could sustain itself far longer, but wisely chose to end when it did. I consider the Odd Couple show to be the most cleverly dialogued show with only Seinfeld coming close. I like that it had an ending with Felix going back to his wife in the final episode. |
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Still liked Season 1 well enough to start Season 2 soon.
