Death to Short Seasons: House of the Dragon, The Acolyte & More Prove that Stories Need To Be Longer

Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. Check out the last entry: The Biggest TV and Streaming Reveals out of SDCC.

We’re here, y’all. 50 issues of Streaming Wars. That’s almost a year of this column doing its thing on the internet which, in our current digital media landscape, feels like a feat in and of itself. You might be wondering “Are we celebrating, Mia? Writing a nice bit of fluff to take an easy victory lap? Talking about She-Hulk so you can watch people gnash their teeth over nothing again?’’ And no, dear reader, we are not. We have something more important to attend to, because I am salty.

I’ll be real – I agonized over a thoughtful preamble to this entry. Nothing came to me, so let’s cut to the chase: TV seasons are too mother bleeping short and I am sick of it. I’m done. It has been getting worse and worse and worse over the years and there have been four examples of the problem in quick succession in July and August alone. Enough!

Come with me on the stages of grief over a floundering medium and witness, dear friends, as my sadness turns to rage in real time. Start with me at the beginning, if you would be so kind.

Semi-serialized television has brought us so many wonders over the years. What started with soap operas eventually evolved into all-time great TV shows like Lost, ER and Scandal, and brought us genre favorites like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, and an entire universe of superheroes on the CW. When people talk about “appointment TV,” they always think of the Game of Thrones of the world, but all of these stories had a pull on audiences that kept them tuning in weekly to find out what happened to characters that they’d fallen in love with over time.

While it was never the key component to fans’ adoration — that was good writing and compelling acting — time still played a critical role in the success of all of those shows and so many more. We fell in love with Buffy Summers over 22 episodes per season. We watched Mulder and Scully fall for each other gradually as the X-Files unfolded over their own longform arcs. Many of us watched (and some of us grew up) alongside Sam and Dean Winchester over Supernatural’s impressive 15 seasons, all of which, you guessed it, also rocked an average of 22 episodes per season.

When we truncate that time, fans have less of an opportunity to connect with characters on the large and small scale. Some viewers may claim to want nothing but action and high stakes at all times, but the fact of the matter is that without the small, the big doesn’t matter. There are no stakes to be had without meaningful character work and, over the years, the amount of time taken on that aspect of storytelling has dwindled until we reached the absolute joke of the eight-episode season.

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