I've noticed in the last couple of years, cable and streaming have gone from producing new seasons of shows yearly to now producing new seasons maybe every 2 or 3 years for a lot of shows.

Just to name a few that have done this:

Westworld. Produced every two years until it was cancelled. I’m sure that contributed to its ratings and interest erosion. It was a huge hit season 1 and then people started to forget it was on.

Game of Thrones. It was yearly then changed to two years later for the final abbreviated season.

House of the Dragon's 2nd season isn't expected until 2024

The Last of Us is close to wrapping season 1. I don't think we'll be getting a 2nd season in 2024. I haven't heard that they started filming and supposedly season 1 took 15 months to film. So I think 2025 is likely.

Loki's 1st season came out in 2021 and was only 6 episodes. Season 2 is expected this summer. 2 years later.

Rings of Power's 2nd season isn't expected until 2024.

The Boys even took a 2 year break between seasons 2 and 3.

I'm sure there are much more, especially on Netflix. I know Sex/Life that stars Sarah Shahi and has no special effects is just releasing it's 2nd season next month. 2 years later.

Jack Ryan's 3rd season just aired almost 4 years after season 2. But, I know Covid delayed that a year, but Amazon just delayed it longer after it was finished. Bosch was able to crank out new seasons yearly even when COVID hit.

I know there is already so much shit to watch, but what about these shows that are taking extremely long now? If there is a show you're heavily invested in and then has an amazing season finale, but you won't see a follow up in 2 or 3 years, does that just kill your interest and momentum? I know Covid played a factor and backed up a lot of post production, but shouldn't things have caught up by now?

In this day and age with so much content and competition, I think it’s ridiculous for these programs to have such a sloth production schedule. I do get that some programs have extensive special effects that take time. But that comes with good production planning. Not taking 1 month to film an episode and another month for post. Battlestar Galactica was a big science fiction epic back in the early 2000s with lots of special effects. But they manage to get shit done every year.

I know network TV is still able to produce shows yearly since they work under a more tighter and rigorous schedule.

Doesn't bother me. We wait years between movie sequels. This is mainly for special effects heavy shows and big actors schedules?

It kills it for me, in general. I'll come back for high quality shows I think are great like Better Call Saul, but TV series usually rely on you keeping up with the stories. After a two year break, I've lost interest in most stories.

As long as they are good, then the wait dont matter. But when that new season you waited forever for, sucks. Then it kills it.

I doesn't kill interest, but it does mean that I can't remember shit from the previous season. I don't have time to rewatch, so it often results in me just dropping the show altogether.

I mean some of these shows have a ton of special effects/post production work that just takes time. Unless they film all seasons back to back to back (which takes a huge commitment from whoever is ordering it particularly if it's sight unseen) it would be almost impossible. I don't think it's laziness, I doubt anyone involved wants such a long wait between seasons.

You always hear of what a hellhole CW shows are like because you are just constantly filming. Yes, they have a ton of episodes: but the actors and all staff involved get worn out like crazy, and often the writing just falls to pieces eventually as well. And the actors would like time occasionally to do something else.

It's not like there's not other content around to fill the gap.

You also hear stuff like how digital special effects people are getting worn out by the schedules, and maybe there just aren't enough talented people to keep up with all this production. This is completely separate but this constant need for more content and an unwillingness to take time off between seasons is drastically affecting stuff like anime production as well. I'd much rather these shows take some time to keep the quality up and not burn out their workforce instead of just burn through seasons and have the quality turn to crap, and the people involved hate it so much they want nothing to do with the franchise for years after.

Yeah hard agree here. Forgot the plotlines of Westworld and The Boys. Recently caught up on their most recent seasons but very reluctantly so and only because I heard good things. It definitely erodes interest.

Anything over two years kind of annoys me. I get it for some shows but still. The good thing is it gives me plenty of time to rewatch a previous season to be refreshed. I also don’t want half baked ideas when things are rushed. It just can be a bit hard to keep up interest in certain shows when they have irregular schedules for releasing seasons.

I don't generally watch shows as they are released, waiting until the series has completed its run before ever starting. The exception is the Marvel stuff, since it ties together with the movies. I don't mind waiting years for Marvel shows to put out another season, since it ties together it all just typically feels like a continuation of one long story.

If burnout or production times are an issue, I wouldn't mind seeing shorter seasons released yearly. No idea what the financial aspect of these things are though.

There's a lot to watch in between, so we don't get bored, but we can lose track of shows. My wife and I loved the first two season of The Orville, but we haven't been able to get around to watch the third season and it's been out forever.

I would appreciate more recap specials before the new season starts.

It kills it for me

It killed my interest in Hunters season 2 which just came out.

Didn't this start with Premium series like The Sopranos? And we all accepted it because we figured it was better have them take their time carefully writing and shooting the show so we can have quality stuff, instead of rushing things for a mediocre shows? I'm used to it by now, add in the Panny...and it is what it is.

I'm actually waaaaay more annoyed by these bullshit breaks in the middle of seasons. Fuck that shit.

Article from 2018 about this. Why your favorite TV shows are off the air for so long between seasons...There were 414 days between seasons of Better Call Saul, 486 between seasons of Atlanta, and 505 between seasons of Westworld.

Do I like it? No.

Kill interest? No, why would it? If I enjoy and like something why would a little time passing make me not like it anymore? I'm not going to forget something I just saw a couple of years ago. Or a quick reminder would bring it all back.

Some series, like Stranger Things, House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, and The Boys, can get away with it, but with other, marginal series like Hunters and Carnival Row, it's probably going to kill interest in them.

I wait until a show is over to watch it usually so if i wait 8 years to see a show that's fine i have plenty to watch in the mean time. When I do watch shows I never watch them live and never have since i was a kid and DVDs started being put out so I watch a show for about 2 days a year then wait for the next season anyways so waiting isn't a big deal at all to me

It absolutely kills my interest. That and breaking up seasons into separate parts.

The breaking up into separate parts is OK to me if both parts are more or less two separate seasons, but they call it one season for contractual reasons. If they just cut the season in half, it sucks.

Since I often don't manage to watch a season by it's release the long breaks bewteen seasons don't bother me that much, but if a show was just OK and I didn't miss it that much, I might not get back to it.

I think delays do kill interest, and not just for fans. Showrunners have fancy new titles to helm, the actors have other stuff to engage them, and cancelation decisions are surely made easier by large time gaps. That 2018 article doesn't make sense to me. If you're doing 10-13 episodes per year rather than 22 that should make it much easier, not harder, and eliminate questions of burnout. If you're still burned out maybe you just shouldn't do TV, because your forebears somehow managed it.

It only kills interest inasmuch that I can forget a show is even on. I do believe this is where a weekly release model works best, as it makes the gap a tad smaller.

To me it's like each season is an entry in a movie franchise. Or, theatrical franchises are feeling more like tv series.

What makes me mad is that streaming is killing the release of further seasons on physical media of some of my favorite shows, like Stranger Things and The Expanse. I have Seasons 1 & 2 of Stranger Things in the VHS packaging, and Seasons 1 thru 4 of The Expense, with no further information whether these assholes will ever release further material on physical media. I'll hang on to what I have, but I may eventually get rid of it if they refuse to release what material remains. We don't stream. We got rid of cable because we didn't like having to subscribe to shit we didn't care about. That's why I started to build my physical media collection. Now, with 1400 of my favorite movies and TV shows on disc, I have absolutely no interest in subscribing to streaming anything. I want to own the physical media.

I buy all the Paramount+ Star Trek shows on BD. I wish the Star Wars stuff would get released. I have a DVD recorder and record them to disc to keep but the quality is less than even official DVD and only in stereo. Same with some of the Marvel stuff. I had to record last two seasons of SHIELD because they didn't get released. I recorded Pennyworth in case it didn't get released and then tossed them when it was. Hope Pennyworth 3 gets a release, maybe Warner Archive.

Depends on the show. Something like Ted Lasso is worth waiting years for. A basic procedural taking that much time off would most likely get me to drop it from my watch list.