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Warden_de_Dios t1_j9s5yqh wrote

I think you're overlooking 2 things about today's market place compared to the 90s when most of these shows premiered. Today, through either a streaming service or piracy everything is on demand. Today I choose not to watch a show whereas in the past if I wasn't making sure I was in front of my television at a certain hour I didn't have a second chance to see that shows episode. You can argue VCRs solved that problem, but juggling blank tapes, video store rentals and porn really made that too much of a hassle.

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The second thing is 20+ episode seasons that told episodic stories doesn't really exist today. Today all 8 to 12 episodes for that season are written before the cameras starts rolling. These shows you're talking about had a crew in preproduction for a future episode while a separate crew is filming a different episode. And there's a crew that's working post production on an episode that just got finished filming. Today actors have ample time to rehearse everything, but the writers don't have time and opportunity to change a plot mid season or realize two actors have shit chemistry and a whole season shouldn't be wasted trying to get the audience to ship them.

Breaking Bad and Xfiles could survive, IMHO, in this era. Seinfeld could maybe survive with the Netflix model but it seems hard for a 20 minute comedy to survive in a weekly release model, but I do keep checking to see if a new Ghosts has been released. (which reminds me to turn on my TV)

TNG would be doomed if the original creative team had to write 12 episodes, film them all and then release them either all at once or weekly. So many fans of TNG would drop in to watch a episode of TNG in the first couple of years (remember TNG was on multiple channels in each city before Congress changed syndication rules) and not come back for months. Nothing like that exists in todays market.

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hawks-make-me-sad t1_j9ue2ew wrote

Great points across the board. To extend your comment, I think the shift in market would also impact whether certain shows are even created. For example, Seinfeld would more likely to be "A Podcast About Nothing" than a Netflix comedy imo.

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