I'm not vouching for the correctness of what this website has to say, but this is an X-Files "watch it or skip it?" guide.

https://liztellsfrank.com/2023/09/10...atch-it-guide/

And it looks like for all teh classic Scully/Mulder years they are calling 25-33% skip.

I watched every episode of Smallville, week by week, when it aired, and there was A LOT!! of filler and crap in there, but it was what it was, and that's how TV was watched, week by week. Now, producers talk openly about how they don't see their shows as being made to be watched like that. Even shows that are released on streaming every week will ultimately become stuff that people binge-watch, and the people making the shows know that. Plus, now they produce these entire shorter seasons before a snigle episode gets shown. Versus the 20+ nerwork model where they would always be just a few weeks ahead in production, so they shows could react to how things were being received by the audience.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Maybe I'd cut 2-4 episodes out per season on an X-Files rewatch, but everyone's 2-4 episodes will be slightly different.

There's something to be said that staff/showrunners often needed 20 or more episodes to get a feel of the cast and characters before hitting their stride. You especially see that in comedies, which often mutate by their second or third seasons into their most beloved form.

Actors and production crew are paid far less working on streaming shows. I’ve read some actors express some frustration about working for apparently low ball wages by working a “full season” of like 6 to 8 episodes.

If you’re lucky enough to be a “series regular” or on the production crew of say The Rookie. You basically have a guaranteed job from July until March of the following year every year until the show ends or is canceled.

Let’s say you work on a 6 episode “season” on Netflix. They could very shoot all those episodes in 2 to 3 months and then you’re out of work who knows how long.

I've also heard being crew on most Hollywood productions isn't a great lifestyle. Long hours with little free time, unless you make it big people often want to get out. I've heard it's very difficult for those who want a family. The quality of life is terrible.

"There's always work at the post office"

Would you like to see the return of 20+ episode seasons

Not really. There's just so much content being churned out right now that I prefer shorter, tighter seasons.

Not to mention all of the stuff that's already been produced.

I mean, I've never watched Supernatural, though it sounds vaguely interesting, but I don't think I could handle 327 episodes of anything.

I would say, though, that some programs I watch like Star Trek Strange New Worlds could use a few more episodes since ten doesn't seem like it's enough to service the characters, concept, or world. Even bumping it up to fourteen or so would give it a little room to breathe. With only ten episodes a season, it's kind of weird to see something lite like "Subspace Rhapsody" sandwiched between darker episodes like "Under the Cloak of War" and "Hegemony."

There have been great shows and there are any X Files episodes I didn't like. I actually prefer most of the standalone episodes, but The X Files wasn't the standard. Take something like Stargate more than 200 episodes of visiting a new planet every week that looks like Canadian woods. With a nice budget and a 10 episode arc something like Stargate could have been actually good.
I agree that tv/streaming in general hasn't gotten better, but there are much more shows now and the traditional networks hardly contribute anything worth watching. Now there are shows only HBO would produce on Paramount, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Hulu, AMC...

There's also a lot of garbage since everything is getting a season and isn't killed after a bad pilot. There are shows like Bosch which could produce 22 episodes and probably would do fine, but Obi-Wan Kenobi felt too long with 6 episodes.

Fuck no. Unless we go back to a fifth of the amount of shows.

I don't know if I want 20+ shows per season as much as I want WAY LESS time between seasons. This one to two years (or more ) between seasons is ridiculous.

I prefer the model of The Walking Dead ~16 episodes a year, divided in two parts.

The first five years of The Andy Griffith Show (the ones with Barney Fife), they made 32 epsiodes a season, and I'd be pressed to find ten out of 160 that I'd call crappy.

I think comedy is different. Most comedies aren't great out of the gate and the cast and writing staff need time to find the perfect tone and timing, so more episodes can help.
But the few years back TBS and other comedy channels had a model of ordering a short first season and than 100 episodes for syndication and all those comedies like Anger Management were terrible.

Part of it is that the broadcast network model of production and airing happening at the same time gives them the chance to adjust based on the public's reaction. There are so many examples of successful, long-running sitcoms where the producers had to abandon fundamental aspects of what they thought the show should be, based on what audience's were responding to.