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pingveno t1_j5s19pt wrote

Reply to comment by pseudopad in Ted Sarandos says that Netflix has “never canceled a successful show” by avery5712

I never really appreciated the episode per week format until someone pointed out the benefits. It lets viewers form a community that discusses each episode, speculates on new developments, and savors it over time.

From the platform's standpoint, that means fewer people subscribing just to binge a show or two. Hence Disney can trickle out Mandalorian episodes that retains subscribers, but Netflix drops Stranger Things in one or two batches every year or more that might get fewer sustaining subscribers.

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pseudopad t1_j5s268f wrote

I completely agree. Binge watching is a short term "pleasure" but I think it's detrimental to the long term impact of shows. Either you binge everything asap, or you get the show spoiled on next Mondays lunch break.

It turns the entire thing into a solitary experience. You never really feel like there's a point in talking to acquaintances about the shows, because the odds of you being at the same point in the show are so low.

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jacob4408 t1_j5undsk wrote

Dude, you're projecting. Just because you need an artificial release schedule to force you into a social sharing experience, that doesn't mean others need that mechanism or want that same result. If your social group is going to spoil all your shows on lunch breaks then find a better social circle.

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Cahootie t1_j5spf08 wrote

Arcane did it in an interesting way. They had nine episodes with three distinct story arcs, and they split it up into three drops of three episodes. You pretty much got a trilogy of movies dropping once a week, and it became a good trade-off. You got your binge moment while also allowing hype to build over the course of the release which turned out extremely successful.

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pingveno t1_j5st13n wrote

Wheel of Time, for all its flaws, made another interesting choice. They started out by dropping three episodes, then switched to one per week. That got people started with the story (which starts a little slow), but then trickled in with the rest. Then again, WoT has a different fan dynamic because the book series has been finished for ten years already. There's not much guessing to be done.

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AgentUpright t1_j5trfy4 wrote

Disney+ does that for most of their shows. First week usually has 2 or 3 episodes, then they release 1 a week till the end of the season.

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