I was sitting through what may be my third or fourth Gilmore Girls rewatch when the thought struck me: they just don’t make TV like this anymore. I mostly meant it as a joke because I find Gilmore Girls to be the pinnacle of all television, but the more I thought about it, the more I found this to be true. When we consider all of the classic comfort shows, a few names come to mind (Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl, Friends, etc). Why is it that no TV show made within the last five years has been able to achieve this status?
Before I get into it, I should probably define what separates these shows from the TV of today. Longevity is a huge factor—most shows don’t even make it to a season two anymore, much less season five and above. And within those seasons themselves, things have changed. We’ve gone from being blessed with getting a 20+ episode season every year, each one being 40 minutes, to waiting three years for eight episodes.
I think a lot of this has to do with the streaming model that TV currently operates under. With the sheer amount of TV being thrown at us from all the different platforms, shows have to perform extraordinarily well to even be renewed for a season two. If not, streaming services are quick to pull the plug. This also means that in order to capture the general public’s attention, shows are created with an insane production value that takes them much longer to get made.
But as a result of the grand spectacles that we’re used to today, all the fun parts of a TV show get stripped away. We’re being told about these characters and their relationships rather than being allowed to watch them develop. We miss out on all the fun and somewhat irrelevant side plots that normally make up the heart of the show. It’s hard to get attached to a story or its characters when you spend such little time with it.
Will we ever get back to where TV once was? At this point, it seems highly unlikely – which really sucks! This doesn’t mean that there are no good shows today. For example, The Bear is some of the greatest TV out there right now. But think about how much greater it would be if the seasons were twice as long. The good news is at least we can rewatch the old shows over and over to keep us satisfied and comforted.