We have more television available to us than ever before.
With Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, Prime and all the other streaming services I somehow have access to, I could start a new show every week and still not run out of things to watch. Yet, more often than not, I find myself going back to the OGs like The Vampire Diaries, One Tree Hill, Grey’s Anatomy, or Friends. Part of this is definitely nostalgia, but I think there is something else we miss about television before streaming changed the way we watched it.
For one, I think we all yearn for the 20-something episode seasons. Eight episodes might tell a story more efficiently, but efficiency was probably the last reason I loved television. Older shows had room for episodes that didn’t necessarily change the entire plot of the season. There were college fraternity Halloween parties in The Vampire Diaries, Jessie Christmas episodes, Pretty Little Liars school dances, Good Luck Charlie, It’s Christmas! road trips, and so many other storylines that existed simply because they were fun. Somehow, the residents of Mystic Falls always found time for another town event despite the alarming number of vampires trying to kill them. And I loved every second of it.
Those iconic episodes also gave us something that I feel like we don’t get as much anymore: time with the characters. Relationships didn’t have to happen within eight episodes. Sometimes it took an entire season for two characters to even admit they liked each other. Friendships also had time to grow, there were random inside jokes, and not every episode had to be about the biggest problem of the season. I know people call these “filler episodes,” but honestly, those are some of the episodes I remember the most. They made me actually care about the characters instead of just caring about what happened next.
I also think streaming took away some of the excitement that came with waiting for a new episode. Don’t get me wrong, waiting a whole week after a cliffhanger was terrible. But at the same time, it was kind of fun. You had something to look forward to every week, and in between episodes you could talk about what happened with your friends or come up with theories about what was going to happen next. Most of them were probably completely wrong, but that was part of the fun. Now, a season comes out on Friday and by Sunday people have already watched the whole thing. Then TikTok is full of edits for a few days, everyone talks about it, and a week later it feels like we’ve already moved on.
And I can’t even blame streaming completely because I do the exact same thing. If you give me eight episodes at once, I’m probably watching all eight. But then I finish the show and immediately wish I hadn’t watched it so fast. Sometimes I barely remember what happened in individual episodes because I watched them all back-to-back. There’s no time to wonder what’s going to happen or to actually miss the show. You finish one episode, press next, and keep going until there’s nothing left.
Maybe that’s part of the reason I keep going back to shows that ended years ago. I obviously miss Blair Waldorf’s outfits and watching her and Serena have another ridiculous fight. I miss Mystic Falls somehow having a school dance every other week even though something horrible happened to basically all of them. But I think I also just miss being that into a show.
I don’t know if older TV was necessarily better, but it definitely gave us more time to get attached to it.