The Downfall of Streaming

Illustration by Jordan Wolfanger

In mid June, the second half of Bridgerton season three premiered on Netflix. I, like most twenty something teenage girls, was sitting with my face mask and Poppi soda, ready to binge all four episodes in one sitting. The funny thing is, even though I love the series so much, I almost forgot about it during the gap between part one and part two. I had forgotten the date of the second part’s release until the day of when I was excited that I then knew what I was going to be doing that night. After finishing the series (had some issues but loved it btw), I sat there and thought “Well that was a good run. Can’t wait to wait one to two years for another (maybe) eight episodes!” This got me thinking about how much T.V. shows have shifted since going to streaming and how I don’t think the change is good.

The initial appeal of streaming services such as Netflix was that you could binge watch entire seasons of shows at once, instead of having to buy a DVD of a season or wait for it to premier on regular T.V.. I agree that I like being able to go back and binge certain shows like New Girl or Avatar whenever I want, but I think streaming services took it a little too far. Netflix heard that people liked binging and so they ran with that and began releasing full seasons of shows at a time. It now is not just Netflix too but all other platforms are now releasing entire seasons at once. The thing is, those shows that we go back and watch all at once were originally streaming weekly on live T.V.. Releasing an entire new season all at once doesn’t feel the same.

Streaming services tend to release new shows that get very popular around the time of their release, then completely fizzle out within a month of the initial drop. I find myself binging really good shows and then completely losing interest after I am done. I think part of this is also the fact that streaming services are known to randomly cancel shows because they produce so many. I think my brain wants to protect itself from getting too invested and then being disappointed. Take The Society for instance that was on Netflix. That show was one of my favorites and the season ended on a huge cliffhanger, but then Netflix canceled the show even though it had a huge audience. 

I think Netflix has noticed that people lose interest which is why they started releasing parts. They did this with Stranger Things and now Bridgerton to try and increase engagement for a longer time. The thing is, I personally hate the two parts even more. I lost interest in between parts like I mentioned above. I personally would rather have weekly episodes than two parts. When I think about the watching experience of WandaVision or Euphoria, I am envious I could not have that with Bridgerton. A certain community is built around the shows when episodes are released weekly. People get to speculate what will happen next, you’re more drawn into wanting the next episode, you get to look forward to something each week. Streaming services, in trying to fix a problem, completely sucked the life out of watching T.V.

Another issue with modern T.V. shows are the amount of episodes and gaps in between seasons. Now, eight episodes is considered a whole season. The norm used to be at least twenty episodes per season of a show. In addition, you have to wait a year if not more for more episodes to come out. This can best be seen in Stranger Things. The once child actors are all grown up now. The main actress, Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven is married now! And the show still isn’t finished! People who started watching an 80’s show about a group of kids don’t get that anymore because of the production of the show and its timeline. The large gaps in seasons also create the issue of keeping actors and actresses. You see this in Bridgerton where characters are conveniently written off because the actors and actresses do not want to put their careers on hold for the next twenty years for a show.

Then, you have the whole other layer of how streaming has slowly just turned to cable. When there used to be only one or two streaming services, it made sense to purchase them and possibly cancel your cable T.V.. Now, there are countless streaming services that all have different shows and movies on them. On top of that, they are all slowly now starting to up their prices. Some are now even adding ads when one of the whole points of streaming was the lack of commercials. And don’t even get me started on Netflix trying to kick people off the account if they are not using the home wifi. Netflix completely disregarded college students and families that are split in different places. I would rather pirate shows on websites like Soap2Day than have to pay my own money for Netflix instead of using my family’s account. All they are doing is pushing customers away. 
With all these frustrations occurring with streaming, I have to wonder, how long until something gives? Many of them are already having financial issues. At what point will people not put up with paying $12 each for seven different services. (Speaking of which, writing this reminded me I need to cancel my Paramount subscription until the next season of YellowJackets) And if these companies begin going under then what is next? I suppose there is a chance that they could listen to their customers and start releasing weekly quality shows again or team up together to reduce the different amount of streaming services, but if they do not listen? Will we all go back to cable or will a new invention come in to take over? I’m interested to see where streaming will go. In the meantime, I’ll be patiently waiting for the next seasons of Bridgerton, though I may have gray hairs by the time we get to season seven.