In an era when episodes are movie-length and have multimillion-dollar budgets, we’ve officially left the time of 20 episodes of 20-minute stories. Transforming into shorter series with far longer episodes and many major TV endings falling short of fans’ expectations.
From the final season of Game of Thrones to the recent closure of Euphoria, fans have not been quiet about their favorite characters’ shocking endings. Are we seeing a downfall of TV series? Why are fans growing more upset by the way the shows are being written? There is no magic answer, but possible explanations for why the shift is so drastic.
When exploring shows like Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and Euphoria, you begin to see similar trends in film length, character depletion, and fan reactions—all potential causes of why shows are finishing with less success than when they started.
Game of Thrones was a major TV series that achieved huge success. Winning almost 60 Emmys during its run, it became the most awarded drama series in Emmy history. Created as the TV adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s book series A Song of Ice and Fire, it quickly rose to fame, maintaining a high Tomatometer score of over 90 percent between seasons one through seven. It pushed boundaries while bringing fantasy fiction back to television like it hadn’t been seen for a long time, if ever. The blend of a cinematic budget and beloved actors made audiences grow to love the characters and appreciate the series’ overall aesthetic.
But between the seventh and eighth seasons, the show took a huge hit in ratings and in fan and cast reactions alike. When the show ended in 2019, the screenwriting had shifted, leaving many fans confused and upset. Ending after just six episodes, the show saw a major decline in ratings, with critics and fans disappointed in the way they sacrificed entire character arcs in a rush to finish. According to the Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus, “Game of Thrones‘ final season shortchanges the women of Westeros, sacrificing satisfying character arcs for spectacular set-pieces in its mad dash to the finish line.” The show’s ratings took a nosedive to a dismal score of 55 percent.
Stranger Things, a science fiction show loosely based on Dungeons & Dragons, faced similar triumphs and challenges. With a cast full of kids, fans fell in love with the raw acting produced by actors many of us hadn’t seen before. Winona Ryder might’ve helped draw audiences in, but the success was tied to beloved characters, intense storylines, and a massive budget that made us believe they were really fighting monsters.
For five seasons, we watched the characters save the world many times, but we also watched the cast grow up— and after the delay due to the 2023 writers’ strike, the anticipation among fans grew stronger than ever.
“The years between season releases call for audience demand and the expectation of a proper ending,” Brianna Grbic, a sophomore Media Production and Management Student at the University of Central Florida, said, “This also gives fans time to reminisce on earlier seasons. Nostalgia takes over, and when the finale finally arrives, it struggles to reach the same level as what is remembered or wanted to be.”
Stuart Heritage of The Guardian raised a good point in his review of Stranger Things 5: “The downfall of season five’s release strategy, though, is that it gives you time between episodes to think.” Season five was released in volumes on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve, and between each release, the fandom took their theories and thoughts online to try to unpack and predict the possibly monumental final battle.
However, the episodes’ release wasn’t the only factor contributing to their lower ratings; the plot holes left unanswered due to ineffective pacing in the final seasons’ volumes were a complaint fans raged on about. Word got out during the production of Stranger Things 5 that writers Matt and Ross of the ‘Duffer Brothers’ had begun filming without finishing the script, raising concern among fans about the meticulousness of the final season. The Tomatometer (critics’ score) never faltered below 80 percent. The same cannot be said with the Popcornmeter (audience score), which fell to just 52 percent, proving what fans were saying—they were not satisfied with the direction of the finale.
HBO Max’s Euphoria is the latest series to exhibit the new struggle being seen in TV shows. A show that once launched its own aesthetic makeup trends, had a soundtrack by Labrinth precisely molded into scenes, and had characters you (secretly) loved to hate, turned into one many found unrecognizable.
“I think the decline in viewer approval rates has to be in the writing of the shows; most people are unsatisfied with certain character endings because they don’t really feel right,” senior Victoria Suarez, a UCF Theatre and Entertainment major, said.
Euphoria was one of the many projects delayed by the 2023 writers’ strike, but since Sam Levinson is notorious for writing alone, the setback caused many problems. The four years between seasons two and three left a lot of room for change, and it impacted the show heavily. Actor controversies and alleged actor rifts took a big toll on the show’s production. One of the actors, Angus Cloud, tragically passed away, leading to further rewrites. To the fandom’s surprise, Labrinth also had a falling out with Euphoria, so his music was absent from the final season, which many fans said was necessary for monumental scenes. All these factors led to plot holes and character decay in the final season, resulting in a Tomatometer score of 44 percent for season three, a shocking disappointment for many fans.
With so many major TV series ending, we’re left to wonder what the future of TV will look like. Can they find a way to balance creativity to the very end? To work around actor feuds? Find new episode release methods? We’re yet to know, but shows like The Last of Us, despite season two’s mixed reviews, have the chance to redeem television by crafting a strong yet complete finale.