I've heard showrunners say "we have 5 seasons planned" about various shows and half the time it isn't true

Not saying that's the case for The Boys but it's a weirdly common thing they say. Not sure why

And being a screenwriter in particular sounds like a nightmare of a job.

One actor has a schedule conflict so you gotta rewrite the story to remove him. Another says they need more lines so you do that. The producer says there's not enough giant spiders happening.

Imagine if Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended with Spike dumping Buffy, and falling in love with Willow. Within just the final 3 or 4 episodes.

That's the kinda stuff you can look forward to.

Tbf you're almost at season 3B which most people consider the best part of Teen Wolf. But the weird scene cuts, the confusing character friendships, etc will still be there. Jeff Davis never had an overarching plan for the series following season 1 (or a writing team that lasted longer than a year) so everything from 2 onward is a patchwork of contradictions that only gets messier.

Jeff Davis is one of those writers who gets worse as time goes on, somehow.

He wrote some of the best episodes of Teen Wolf's early seasons, but when he started writing the bulk of the series by himself it got progressively more nonsensical. He just released the movie and it has the worst Rotten Tomatoes score (both fans and critics) of anything so far.

What do you mean by filler shots in Breaking Bad? Like the time lapses of the sun going across the sky and stuff?

I love Breaking Bad but to be fair it's a very slow-paced show. The scripts are just as long as any 45 minute show (about 50-60 pages), but sometimes half of those pages are just describing rooms or specific shots.

I'm imagining this being a Nathan Fielder reality show.

Funny idea, but seriously sometimes shows do find out they'll be cancelled when they have a couple episodes to spare and they try to wrap everything up quickly. It isn't pretty.

I wonder if that was the actual plan or just an idea they tossed around

I feel like I've heard the "we almost wrote off the fan favorite character" thing about so many shows that it just feels like something writers say to be cute