Weekly-releases were not made for post-pandemic television
90% of shows being released today follow a weekly format. For nearly 80 years, weekly-releases have been the dominant structure for television screenings.
However, they do not work anymore.
Pre-pandemic, weekly-releases were the golden standard. Shows followed a very specific format that catered to people who tuned in every week to see their favorite shows. Episodic structured installments that followed a repetitive formula, were self-contained, and had a main A-plot that followed through to the series finale were unmatched. The 2010s were full of them: The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, (pretty much all of the CW), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Office, Modern Family, nearly all Nickelodeon shows, and more, were all highly-episodic. Nowadays, this doesn’t work. Shows are serialised, seasons take time to build and episodes require large spanning periods to reach a conclusion.
Outliers that still managed to operate with weekly-releases and weren’t episodic were shows like: Breaking Bad, Mr. Robot, Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul, etc. These shows managed to have non-contained, highly-serialised fromats, that still worked on a weekly-release. Shows that are now considered to be some of the greatest of all time. Good writing excuses the gap between each episode as viewers expected and were delivered quality. Not every show can deliver on that today, yet they all choose to release weekly.
The rise of streaming platforms has not necessarily been a driving factor as to why this shift has occured, but they have definitely not helped.
A recent TV show that still released weekly installments on Disney+ without breaking the serialised structure is Andor. Andor followed a four-chapter framework, with three episodes per chapter released weekly. Each chapter stood on its own. From Aldani to Narkina, Ferix, and Ghorrman. Andor managed to turn the weekly structure to their advantage. However, good writing does help a lot. Andor is most definitely the best show to release post-pandemic, but that's a conversation for another time.
Moreover, weekly-releases contribute heavily to negative reception. Not only post-pandemic but also during the height of 2010-2019 releases. The Boys right now is receiving a lot of backlash for its fifth season. Now, I'm not saying that it isn’t justified, S5 is not brightest season of the show, but it's absolutely on a similar level of quality as S2 and S3. This is comparable to how The Walking Dead was treated at times for episodes. Facing major drops after character deaths, big writing decisions, etc. One wrong episode that would’ve otherwise been lost in the bunch will instantly turn audiences sour.
Viewership drops will also continue to become the norm, as shows no longer have loyal audiences. Daredevil: Born Again, for example, is experiencing this. Audiences are not willing to commit to two subscription bills and eight weeks of following plot lines, only to be disappointed. Audiences will continue to pre-emptively drop-off before it can happen.
Other formats such as the binge-model have their upsides and downsides but are not necessarily the better way. Binge-model shows can grow much bigger than weekly shows because viewers don't have to commit to finishing them before knowing they're good. Squid Game is a good example of this. A weekly release schedule would not have made it as big as it is today, simply due to the fact that it blew up overnight, and not over the course of two months.
Shows slated to come out this year (e.g. Harry Potter, Lanterns, Spider-Noir, House of the Dragon, etc.) will likely fall into this same cycle. Serialised episodes have become standard practice but release structures have not shifted to support them. Continued negative reception and viewership drops will follow.
Something has to change.
I didn’t really write this post knowing what could fix it. I just wanted to point it out. What are your guys’ opinions?