The best thing about a series with multiple movies or a show with many seasons is growing attached to the characters and their story, but when is it enough? When is it time to finally end the story? This occurrence is quite common with shows like Grey’s Anatomy (18 seasons) and The Simpsons (33 seasons.) Also, with movie series such as Harry Potter (8 movies) or the Marvel and DC universes.
Many have grown up with The Simpsons which started filming in 1989 and still airs new episodes in 2021. With this show you don’t need to stay up to date on every episode because each of them focuses on a new adventure, which is helpful to viewers and appeals to all ages.
On the other hand, Greys Anatomy, a very well-loved show, needs to be watched in chronological order to fully understand the plot, characters, and their relationships. Each episode is around 40 minutes long and a large population does not have time to watch all episodes from the beginning, with an episode count in the 20s for each season. Many are also too lazy to watch it and the show would take months to catch up on, even with binge watching. Plus, there’s always that scare that a new season will come out and you won’t be updated.
This pattern is also shown in movies like Harry Potter, Marvel and DC. The difference with these is that they’re such well-known plots that people from all generations know. For example, if someone were to just turn on the TV and see that The Goblet of Fire was on, they would be able to jump right into it because they already know what’s going on. The same with large movie industries, because with Marvel and DC the heroes and villains are already known around the world so not a lot of background knowledge is needed.
In certain circumstances, writers should just get to the point with a series so then if one were to want to get into a new show, they would not have to worry about new seasons being announced. If someone were to look at it from a different angle, viewership could go down if the dragging on continues as well because people just simply don’t have time to binge TV nowadays.
Despite this, the beloved movie industries will always make money no matter what because they’ll always be relevant in today’s world, with new plots, heroes, and villains. Therefore, they are so interesting to most because of all the new story lines and such that the writers come up with that enchant the viewer.
Movie series should be kept because they’re easier to be creative with and are -for the most part- separate from each other, while TV shows should not be dragged on because they can easily become boring.
Olivia Montgomery // Staff Writer
