Hey Netflix, please stop splitting up TV seasons
As You and The Glory resume their latest seasons, The A.V. Club makes a plea to the streamer to find a less irksome release model
TV Features Netflix
The biggest drawback to You’s latest season isn’t anything that actually happens on the show but rather its unnecessary division, with five episodes premiering on February 9 and the remainder dropping a month later. The show’s creators didn’t initially design season four to be split up, and Netflix’s decision to do so really messed with the viewing experience. See, the Penn Badgley-led psychological thriller is a spectacularly binge-worthy mystery, a show that’s perfectly suited for the streamer. It’s why Netflix acquired it from Lifetime after season one in 2018, breathing new new life (and massive viewership) into the series. But now, the company’s split-season strategy has dulled the impact of season four’s bonkers (and quite good) final episodes.
Netflix has resorted more and more to split seasons for popular shows in recent years, giving the treatment to Stranger Things and Ozark. It’s a stark contrast to the binge model Netflix thrived on with early hits like Orange Is The New Black, House Of Cards, and Grace And Frankie. After decades of weekly episodic releases on network TV, it became the first big streaming platform to allow audiences to consume an entire season in one sitting. The binge model became synonymous with Netflix in the past decade while competing streamers like Hulu, Apple TV+, and Disney+ mostly opted for a weekly release schedule.
As it struggles to find the optimal approach in the crowded peak TV era, Netflix seems to swivel between entire season drops (Outer Banks, Dahmer) and dividing them up, like it did with You and South Korean drama The Glory, the first season of which continues with “Part 2" after debuting in December 2022. It’s not a stretch to say that this inconsistency—splitting seasons for certain shows but not others—has caused a splitting headache for fans. Netflix has forgotten what made it stand out in the first place.
Sure, there are pitfalls to releasing all episodes at the same time in this market. It’s difficult to maintain the hype around a binge show for a long period of time compared to the extended attention that comes from airing episodes weekly. Look no further than last year’s sleeper hits like Severance and Yellowjackets as proof, or HBO’s great dramas like The Last Of Us, Euphoria, and The White Lotus, which all generated conversations and buzz after each outing. Netflix hasn’t been able to garner the same momentum, so it’s chosen to break up its already notable dramas instead. And the effect is…not pleasant.
The highly anticipated fourth season of Stranger Things was split into two “volumes” last summer, with seven episodes airing on May 27 and the remaining two five weeks later on July 1. Ozark’s fourth and final run suffered a similar fate, with a break of three months between batches. Those brief gaps feel totally absurd, and have a less rousing effect in terms of the storytelling.
Admittedly, Netflix is far from the first big platform to chop up its popular shows, which also include Lucifer, Arrested Development, and BoJack Horseman. AMC did it with Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Walking Dead. (The latter’s 11th season got split into three parts for some reason.) In some cases, this choice might be related to production, for instance, if all episodes haven’t been filmed or edited yet. Or, as was the case with Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s fourth season, Netflix dropped six episodes on May 30, 2018, just in time for the Emmys consideration deadline, while the final six debuted several months later in January 2019. Heck, we can go all the way back to HBO breaking up sixth and final season of The Sopranos, but the gap between the two parts was a reasonable whole year.
In the aforementioned Netflix series, their shorter durations make the cleaving of seasons questionable and frustrating. It’s a transparent ploy to rack up subscriptions and social media chatter as audiences wait for more episodes. However, this half-baked release model has soured the consumption of shows like You. The month-long break, smack dab in the middle of its delirious fourth season, actually suppressed the enjoyment. What’s more, it leaves room for fan theories that could just make the twists more predictable.
There’s no telling if Netflix plans to continue this strategy for upcoming seasons of shows like The Witcher or Bridgerton this year. But here’s hoping the streamer’s powers-that-be hear our humble plea and figure out a plan that isn’t as confounding and irksome as this one.
71 Comments
That was one of the reasons I temporarily cancelled Netflix. I’ll join again once they’ve released all of Stranger Things, Love Death & Robots, Black Mirror. Then cancel again.Since they don’t have the movie library like they used to, it doesn’t pay to keep their service until their shows have a new season.
Well then see that also is what has lead to good shows shows getting the axe early because Netflix looks at the week 1 numbers and say “well these are crap” and then crapcan it.
So all the people who waited until they got around to it, both halves dropped, sign back up to watch it, ect don’t count in that thought process. Thus all the complaints of “well it got canceled before I got around to watching it” complaints. They really don’t want you to “get around to it” as they want to have their minds made up about the next season ASAP so they know if they need to hold onto talent or let them go, so they are not going to wait and count up the number 4 or so mouths out.
They have the biggest library of (mainstream) films than they ever had. You clearly weren’t a subscriber in like 2011, when Thankskilling 2 and Time Cop 4 were the most well known films on Netflix.
I will give them credit for having the movie ‘Ink’ back in the day.
That’s… not remotely true. I watched “Ordinary People,” “Serpico,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “Antichrist,” “Carrie” and “Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil” on Netflix in 2011, to name a few.
Who gives a fuck with Netflix anymore? Either pirate or one month subscribe when their few worthy shows have fully dropped. Worst of the streamers by far.
Netflix is still the largest streaming platform on the planet regardless if you, Erik Veland, declare it dead. Your ignorance has the same energy teenage edgelords display when declaring a popular game is “dead”.
Weird that I never once “declared it dead”. Put up another strawman my dude.
Oh yes, the “I didn’t explicitly state this thing” defense despite it being heavily implied with “who give’s a fuck about Netflix anymore”. Strawman my ass. You’re a joke dude lol.
You do realize that 99% of the people using Netflix are paying for it to have convenient access to the library of older, non-original shows/movies it has, right?I don’t think anybody but hardcore movie/tv nerds willingly choose to subscribe to a streaming service just for it’s handful of exclusive shows.
I think that argument had a lot more weight 10 years ago, when Netflix was the only game in town and had a pretty extensive catalog of non-original material. But as other studios/channels have launched their own streamers and reclaimed their catalog, Netflix’s collection of non-original content has become, to put it as nicely as I can, pretty tepid. I’m not sure there’s a ton of people sticking with Netflix because of its movie collection anymore. It’s far more likely, in my opinion, that lots of people keep Netflix “because they’ve always had it,” and if they actually looked at what they consumed on Netflix, it wouldn’t be enough to justify the cost.
Eh, yes and no. Netflix has pretty much become a TV Network now. An international TV network since it produces and/or funds, and puts it stamp a lot of foreign TV shows which is actually the best kind of content on it now, as it’s become very popular abroad. You can just name a country or language and Netflix may have a show on there for it, but tons of K-shows, Telenovellas, Bollywood dramas and everything in between.It’s just that, and as expected, a lot of the foreign content doesn’t catch the attention of Americans except for Squid Game and Black Mirror.
In the US, maybe. In other regions, Netflix is the place for most of the shows people are inclined to want consistent access to (The Office, Friends, Seinfeld, NCIS, etc) and films from a pretty wide variety of distributors. Aside from the occasional breakout hit (Stranger Things, Squid Game, etc) the numbers seem to suggest those “comfort shows” as we call them is what Netflix is being primarily used for. As long as Netflix provides access to those, it’s customers are happy with the service. Also worth considering that Netflix is still the de facto choice for parents of young kids in pretty much every region with access to all the popular stuff like Cocomelon, Blippi and the Nickelodeon shows.
Outside of the US they have very lacklustre libraries of older shows.
I pirate everything but I notice that the vast majority of foreign content comes out of Netflix. It’s absolutely the best for that. LOTS of good shows out there if you don’t mind subtitles.
In a family household, I’d argue they remain the best streamer. By far the biggest mixture of adult, teen, and young child content with the biggest variety choose from. For the cinephile, they probably suck. For the people who just want something to distract for some time, they’re perfectly adequate across a huge audience.
“Midseason Finale” are two of the most annoying words in television.
Granted, when broadcast television ruled it was an acceptable term. Streaming services doing this isn’t.
“when broadcast television ruled it was an acceptable term”When broadcast television ruled, it’s wasn’t a term at all. The shows just went on hiatus without fanfare.
You’re right. The term came into use in the year 2000, in the year 2000!I started watching shows through Netflix back in 2009, which is not a long time ago but the lack of commercials to promote the mid season finale or season finale dulled their memory. For example, as a fan of LOST (the last show I was watching on broadcast before switching) I can’t recall any promotions for it.
There are worse things, though isn’t that right doc?
If people would stop bitching about binging ruining tv watching and being able to make tv an event people are sharing at one time, they wouldn’t do it.If streaming was so much these days that streamers didn’t have to worry about people canceling and uncanceling from month to month, they wouldn’t do it.As it stands, I don’t give fuck. The splitting allows me to binge but worry about wanting to catch all of it. I have plenty to watch out there and barely any time to watch it all.
What I’d really like to know is why Netflix remain so allergic to weekly releases, when all the other major platforms have pivoted back to that.
Because they’ve made it part of their identity. When Netflix Originals first started, there was a lot of press about Netflix pioneering the binge model. I presume they don’t want to switch to weekly releases because they are afraid of the optics. It would be like if Wendy’s stopped making square patties. Is it stupid? Yes.
Yup. Because Netflix was the first kid on the block they’ve got a lot of stuff they are struggling with now, because of how ingrained so many thing are in their identity. Like their Basic Service with Ads that has so much stuff locked because of licensing agreements – its an issue because they never thought they’d have to show ads.
Password sharing was also part of their identity…
And you’ve seen the backlash they’re facing for ending that, right?
Cancelling shows when they clearly had a story arc that they were trying to complete is also part of their identity and unlike everything else it’s heartwarming to see them double down on that!
Just incredible stupidity on their part. They spend tons of money on content and then give shows a few days to prove they can attract a massive audience. They’ve already changed their model to reduce the amount of licensed content they have, increase prices, disallow password sharing in some countries (which will be global eventually), so on. Stubbornly hanging onto the binge model at the detriment of their own content makes no sense.
I’m also convinced that Netflix has the worst predictive algorithms of any streaming service. When I’m on Netflix, they only ever suggest shows to me that either 1. I have no interest in or 2. that are already in my queue. I can’t remember the last time Netflix showed me a preview and it made me pause, add the show to my list, and then watch it. So not only do they spend tons of money on content that they then bury if it doesn’t attract an audience. But they then do a shitty job of actually letting people know that these shows exist so that they can attract an audience. It’s bananas.
I’m glad they do. Weekly release sucks. There’s too many other options in the streaming world to bother with being forced to jump around a weekly schedule.
Personally I like it when a whole season drops at once or, at worst, in a couple chunks. Then I can set aside a day the next weekend or whatever, watch the whole thing and not have to worry about avoiding spoilers for months. Don’t have to remember what happened 4 weeks ago in episode 2, don’t have to waste time with recap bullshit, just watch a season worth of Stranger Things or whatever and then boom, it’s done.
Same. Plus, I like watching one or two episodes a night over a week or so. I even save up some weekly shows so I can just watch them that way when they are done.
I mean I’m the kind of guy who will slam 500+ pages of a good book in a day if I’m into it, so maybe we’re the weirdos here?
It’s a transparent ploy to rack up subscriptions and social media chatter as audiences wait for more episodesIt’s almost as though Netflix has to make lots of money in order to produce new content.
Then release the episodes weekly.
Agreed.
Never found it that hard to wait until the entire series dropped if i really want to binge the whole thing. Anyone who claims it’s hard to avoid spoilers isn’t really trying.
It doesn’t matter what episode dropping pattern each of the streamers go with, there’s going to be someone pissed off about it. This was fine.
It’s dumb, but it’s not like other shows didn’t take midseason breaks even before AMC started breaking up seasons intentionally to create buzz. Agents of Shield used to just disappear for a month and a half for no immediately discernible reason, sometimes more than once a season. Now it seems we’re shifting into taking 2-3 years between seasons of prestige TV anyway. It’ll be interesting to see if either Rings of Power or House of the Dragon can manage to wrap things up before 2030. If The Wheel of Time can hold on for a full run, it might run straight through to 2040. Streamers are choking on their glut of content, because none of them have ever heard of bubble economies before. Oddly enough, only Disney is probably going to coast through the next few years, both because they somehow mastered the churn and are already planning a measured pullback on their flagship properties.
Doesn’t Disney cap at like 6-8 episodes for each of those tentpole originals while Netflix (et all) puts out episode counts in the teens for their stuff?
Yeah, they definitely average fewer episodes in a series than other services, but that’s part of what I mean when I say they mastered the churn. Between Star Wars and the MCU, Disney probably has 15 shows in some stage of development for the next few years. But only a few are ever really on deck at a time (Right now I think we might not have a single release date for a new show). Even though the shows are fairly expensive, they’re probably mostly easy productions that can be shuffled or shelved without having a huge effect on their balance sheet. It’s not like Amazon or HBO, who bet big on flagship series, or Netflix playing the lottery with a thousand different things because they won the jackpot once. They produce a steady stream of content just like they have been with their movies for years. And that tends to get people to keep their subscriptions active for longer, instead of buying one or two months a year just to watch one show they like.
I’m not sure if the others could successfully emulate that, since Disney’s big shows are based on well-established properties with an existing following. Their shows almost act as filler or minor character development between the billion-dollar movies, which can also be released on the platform between shows.I personally like the style of about 10 ~60 minute episodes to get a good long story through, but I also spend very little time watching things most days. I imagine people who spend more time on TV would need the 15-20+ episode series to stay connected to a service long enough to properly monetize the views.
They’re trying to meet weekly releases, the objectively better option, by half.
Nah, they’re just trying to make sure that people have to pay for two months of Netflix in order to watch one season of a show.
Just learn the lesson and do weekly releases. It’s just better marketing.
Basically, this means that I don’t watch shows until their entire season is out (and usually don’t watch new shows until they get a 2nd season due to their quick cancellations these days). That means that I don’t help them figure out what are good numbers for their shows.
Is this just another of the “great things” attributed to Sopranos and copied ad infinitum? Their final season was split.
Heck, we can go all the way back to HBO breaking up sixth and final season of The Sopranos, but the gap between the two parts was a reasonable whole year.A one year gap in the middle of a season, is far from “reasonable” IMO. Just release it as 2 seasons at that point.
IIRC they did that because season 7 would have been contract renegotiation time.
My counterpoint is that it doesn’t fuckin matter in this day and age; people consume shows in different ways, and I actually kind of prefer the split season because it gives me a chance to catch up to the conversation while full-season drops make it so the conversation’s over by the time I’m caught up.Some shows are great as full-season drops, and others are fun to watch week to week; it’s all arbitrary.
Its not like the old way of watching shows on cable or satellite television channels did this right? Ohh wait they did. Except then we also had to wait a full week between episodes too.
Have said it for a while but releasing episodes all at once is bad for shows. Shows that have weekly episodes are talked about for a few months on end and that allows them to attract greater media attention and grow their viewership over time. And showing positive momentum can help shows get renewed after weaker ratings to start.Netflix judges their shows based on how many people watch and binge the entire season in a short period of time. And they cancel a lot of shows. So I don’t see this a cheap ploy, I see it as a stepping stone to the obvious right move to make.
The binge also puts people way behind, so it feels like you are either in or out on a show. Instead of having to catch up on a few weeks, it’s takes multiple days to catch up and a lot of people aren’t willing or able.
Agreed. The shows me and my friends actively discussed the most over the last year were Better Call Saul, Andor, The House of the Dragon, The Rings of Power, and The Last of Us. All weekly releases. Now that TLOU is over, Mandalorian and Succession will likely start up next.Stranger Things would easily have been on that list if it was releasing episodes weekly IMO but its hard to discuss a show when everyone is at a wildly different spot in the series. I binged through the first seven episodes in two days while one of my friends didn’t finish the 7th until right before the final two episodes dropped. And Sandman was a show that I thought really could have benefited from a weekly release.
And they refuse to see/understand how canceling shows all the time leads viewers to be more wary of getting into a show, only to have it be scrapped. So viewers take a wait and see approach, Netflix interprets that as apathy, and cancels it. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The number of ways that Netflix shoots itself in the foot with regard to it’s content is staggering.
Yeah imagine if Andor just all dropped at once.
I wish more streaming services would start doing evening releases for things, like HBO did for Last of Us. I’m not sure if HBO usually does this, but I don’t know what Disney Plus gets by releasing at midnight instead of 5 hours earlier.
If its not all out at once, I will never finish the series or care.Game of Thrones has been the ONLY exception in my life ever and I think House of Dragon sucks so its not gonna be a repeat there.
Netflix: how would you like the worst of both worlds?
you do realize that actual human beings have to make these shows right? The absurd time-crunches required to complete an entire season of television all at once are absolutely detrimental to both the end product and the working conditions for the crew, particularly in post-production. Especially with companies like Netflix who are constantly cutting corners financially while also pushing for an endless stream of new content. The ‘Stranger Things’ gap was due to this very reason – not “absurdly” delaying as a marketing strategy but to allow their post teams enough time to actually finish the work
Can’t wait till they do this again, but when they drop the second part, it’ll turn out that several of the part 1 episodes were re-edited after they were first released, and that will piss off everyone times two.
I loathe this about Stranger Things. This shows screams for it to be released weekly so fans can digest and speculate and anticipate. Instead it drops on a Friday and everyone binges over the weekend to avoid getting spoilers. All the thought pieces, reviews, podcasts are out within 7 days. 2 weeks after it is released it is then completely forgotten about in the popular mainstream. My wife and I have been reatching the series with our oldest son and we just finished the 3rd season. Quite a few times my wife and I remarked how we could not remember a bunch of things that happened. My son looked at us confused like “didn’t you watch this?” We told him we binged it over a weekend like 2.5 years ago when it came out so you don’t absorb it like it would if it was released week to week.A stupid show like Cobra Kai you can get away with, hell even the Crown and Ozarks. But for this specific show…they do the createos, actors and crew a disservice by releasing it this way.
Stranger Things breakup didn’t bother me, I only had to watch one a week anyway by the time the last two episodes dropped and still didn’t get through it in time. Not a binge watching fan
I mean, it’s a bald-faced ploy to get you to pay for two months instead of subscribing, watching the show you want, and then cancelling (basically what I do).
The weird thing is that they didn’t do it for one show that would really have benefited from it, The Sandman.
One thing I never suspected about the future: We’d have TV shows with seasons of high quality content and no commercials, yet people would still find a reason to bitch about them.
I remember seeing Jason Bateman talk about his frustrations when Netflix did the split model with Ozark. Apparently, by splitting up the season, they can pay the actors less, because it’s not a true “season,” or something like that.
That or concede defeat and release your episodes once weekly like nearly everyone else. It help build more buzz for the programming.
It’s simple. Do as I do. Ignore initial part 1 “drops” and then watch it when all parts are there. Put itin your mind that “the new season of is coming out on the ”. Then binge heartily. Avoiding spoilers is tough, I admit. And you still get to be in the discussions with everyone as they are watching the final part too (if that’s your thing).If no “end date” is scheduled like Lucifer had been originally, then it ‘s as if no release is at all.
Well. I’ll just do the same thing I did for You and wait for both parts to be out. I don’t play those fucking games. I DON’T PLAY NO GAMES