Being a main actor in a typical show is often a lot more grueling than a "steady job". Definitely not 40 hours a week stuff. When I learned of their schedule, I actually felt the opposite of OP: They should get better work/life balance and a season should be only about 12 episodes.
There are lots of “contractors” in the tech world, that are brought on for a project and then move onto something else. It makes sense because they can be there for an important project that they can really contribute towards and then move on to another big project. If an actor is really famous and a lot of movies want them, it’d be selfish of them to just stick on one project for years, even if they’re really good at it.
It feels like you’re trying to snark, but in case you’re earnestly trying to have a discussion:
No, “almost every other person on the planet” doesn’t have a “steady job” in the way you’re implying.
There are portions of the workforce that work a 9-5 full time position. There are others that do contract work where they’re temporarily focused fully on one job for a short time span, and also contractors/consultants who take smaller time commitments and work multiple contracts at the same time.
This isn’t just a tech thing, it’s true across many industries.
The standard used to be about 22 episodes a year, so that is an episode every two weeks.
Many shows ran for at least 5 years, and some ran forever (days of our lives would be one example).
So I don't think that is the problem. What is the issue is that Netflix wants to drag you in with a few big hits and then satiate you with much cheaper shows. Unfortunately that doesn't work because they don't have a massive content library, but they still act and price themselves as if they did.
I guess I like "pretty bad" things. Out of the 5 episodes imho only one is mediocre (would not even call it bad). The other 4 are great with 2 of them being exceptional. Go watch them!
This kind of evaluation, ie. "it is pretty bad" is where experience have told me that unless I know the person giving feedback, predictive power on how much I will agree is zero. What is bad? I watched just one episode so far and loved it, are all the other rehashes of previous themes with obvious low budget and bad actors?
Demon 71 is fantastic. Art direction, music selection, style in spades. Very clever twists on the old horror genre with small camera trick homages.
The one in space featured excellent acting from the actor formerly of Breaking Bad. The level of human cruelty on display left me reeling for a good day and a half.
Honestly, this is one of the stronger seasons. My favorite episode remains Crocodile from a season or two ago: its actress remains criminally underrated.
I've watched only the first episode this far. I'd rank it average in relation to the other episodes, which is still around 8/10 for me, as I like the series.
Agreed. They leaned so heavily into the horror/thriller anthology genre that the techno-dystopian angle got lost completely (although I haven’t watched the streaming episode yet). None of the episodes felt imaginative like the early seasons did. It was just a season of British Horror Stories with one episode set in spaaaace and another one with a disco demon (what?!).
If they want to keep it going all they have to do is go back to some of their best episodes and write more stories set in those worlds.
What happened to lead to Metalhead? What’s a rich playboy’s life like in the universe of 15 million merits? Whats the prison industrial complex like in White Christmas? Whats crime like in White Bear? There’s so much content to mine!
Agreed. 2 episodes were good, but not great. The others weren't not necessarily bad, but they were not Black Mirror - I wouldn't necessarily want to watch them if they weren't part of Black Mirror.
Season 6 is thus a disappointment, the worst Black Mirror season.
I found it refreshing that they broadened away from “computer horror” which had started to get worn out. Now it’s closer to a modern twilight zone or outer limits.
Another perspective: it’s pretty great, and holds up to (and even exceeds) the quality of some previous seasons. Even my least favorite episodes of this season were still pretty good.
I expect if we each listed our favorite episodes they’d be pretty different – which is great, and one of the things I like about Black Mirror.
Some filmmakers are all about ideas, others are about vibes, and others are about character-driven narrative (my preference). I think the best are ones who play with all three, which I think Black Mirror continues to do very well.
If you compare to the any other show, plots were quite unique, and cast was quite good. I did not think in any moment that the show was bad. Just that maybe some previous seasons had even more interesting episodes.
Even with infinite funding, hits are not something that just scale up infinitely. Talented showrunners, cast and other production staff only have so many hours they can work before burning out/running things into the ground, and you can't duplicate them with more hires.
The standard strategy is to fund spinoffs of popular franchises. Marvel is a good example of this taken to the extreme, where there literally is a constant content stream.
It probably doesn't apply to Black Mirror, but you can do real worldbuilding in a show that goes 25 episodes/year that you can't do in 10 episodes. And some shows/genres really benefit from that, becoming something more than the sum of their individual episodes. Many modern shows miss out by rushing through a self contained story in a short season.
But if I understand Black Mirror correctly, it's an anthology without a shared world/characters. There'd be diminishing returns much sooner with additional episodes. There's only so much to say about that theme. And we're living it every week anyway.
It is an anthology. But it's all about stretching our technology to its limits and looking at the societal/philosophical consequences. So, the source material is limited. You can produce episodes faster than technology changes. And niche and really experimental technology that people generally don't have access to is not as appealing either.
and since paying talent less is the only one of those things which is easy to figure out, that’s the one the executives focus on.
recently a lot of Netflix’s most successful shows had deals where the creative team got paid more with each successive season. someone at Netflix set this up to incentivize binge-able shows, but since then, someone else decided it cost too much. so a lot of popular shows got canceled.
'Invasion' was so slow, all the characters on 'The Shrink Next Door' so unlikeable,
I regret the time I spent watching both of them. I normally don't give up on shows and at least watch seasons to the end but I stopped after the second episode of 'Hello Tomorrow!' (on paper, it should be a winner for me).
I agree that they've done well, but they've had plenty of clunkers even at this stage. I was deeply disappointed by The Big Door Prize, for example, an unimaginative and saccharine soap for the Oprah Book Club crowd. Plenty of other shows were disappointing to me: Shrinking, Loot, See, Dr. Brain, Liaison, Dr. Corman. Some people liked them, of course.
At some point the content will become repetitive and uninteresting, unless you keep changing it. Then, you'll essentially have a new show with the same name. Look at the simpsons, for instance. It's still popular, but I consider it to be a completely different show from when it started.
It takes more than a week to produce one of those episodes. Think about all the weekly shows you know. Are any of them scripted, highly produced affairs like Black Mirror? There’s a reason all high quality popular weeklies are talk, sports, or reality TV. Yes you can do a sitcom weekly for a long time, but the sets are largely static along with the characters. Production values are also limited compared to something like Orange is… or Black Mirror.
Production companies can't produce content that quickly. Back in the day we had weekly sitcoms, and it took about a week to produce each episode. But for the most part they all took place in one or just a few locations, and usually those were sets on a sound stage. So all they had to do was churn out a script a week (which is no easy task) using the same characters and same actors. The writers usually had a "show bible" that has elaborate backstories for every character that they could draw from, as well as knowing the actor playing the character and sometimes even getting input from them.
There is a reason people would complain that "every week is the same story!". That's because the constraints of the medium meant that you had to keep deviations to a minimum.
Black Mirror is akin to making a movie for every episode. Every episode has different actors, which means they need to be cast. They have different locations, which means they need to be scouted or built. They have different characters which means a lot more work for writing because every character needs a backstory. Basically they have to start fresh for every episode.
Something like Stranger Things is sort of 1/2 way between -- they have their characters and actors, but they have a lot of locations, and the story varies wildly from episode to episode. Each season is like making a really long movie.
And that's just the production side of it.
From the business side it doesn't make a lot of sense either. The whole point is to provide fresh content for users. If you can provide a new show every month, that's a lot more compelling than a new episode of the same show.
Different cast, different set, and different characters all seem to make it easier to horizontally scale production. Other than the financing side of things, why couldn't independent production companies simply make different episodes? Perhaps there are not enough production companies that have that ability?
Because if you want consistency between episodes, you need a core staff that overlaps (usually the writers and producers). Otherwise you're basically just making a bunch of separate movies.
I just recently re-read David Foster Wallace's E Unibus Pluram (1993), so this is fresh on my mind:
> Audience gets trained to respond to and then like and then expect trite, hackneyed, numbing television shows, and to expect them to such an extent that when networks do occasionally abandon time-tested formulas we usually punish them for it by not watching novel forms in sufficient numbers to let them get off the ground. Hence the networks' bland response to its critics that in the majority of cases – and until the rise of hip metatelevision you could count the exceptions on one hand – "different" or "high-concept" programming simply didn't get ratings.
> But it's still not fair to blame television's shortage of originality on any lack of creativity among network talent. The truth is that we seldom get a chance to know whether anybody behind any TV show is creative, or more accurately that they seldom get a chance to show us. Despite the unquestioned assumption on the part of pop-culture critics that television's poor Audience, deep down, craves novelty, all available evidence suggests rather that the Audience really craves sameness but thinks, deep down, that it ought to crave novelty.
I wish Netflix would produce more of its niche shows. There are so many shows with diehard fans that Netflix produces a season or two of and then cancels.
Making more shows costs more money. More shows don't increase revenues when you have a subscription model. Their ideal model is to produce the bare minimum amount of content that keeps people from unsubscribing.
Black Mirror is largely written by one guy, that's why. It's better they make Black Mirror the highest quality. That way, in 20 years, people will watch it, it will be new to them, and still hold up.
Build an evergreen catalogue. Nobody is watching old sitcoms, but new people watch Lost everyday even though that also got badly affected by quantity requirements due to hype of the day.
> Nobody is watching old sitcoms, but new people watch Lost everyday even though that also got badly affected by quantity requirements due to hype of the day.
That's funny because I know multiple people who re-watched Seinfeld and Curb multiple times, but I haven't heard anyone talk about Lost ever since it ended.
The interesting thing about sitcoms is I've never heard anyone talk about a new sitcom in years (maybe Brooklyn Nine Nine?), maybe people are rewatching Seinfeld, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Office, etc as those are the only good ones we have.
The entertainment is also different since a sitcom doesn't require much attention and is much more bingeable whereas regular shows are hit-or-miss.
But still you can't really mass produce Black Mirror or other shows without them going super downhill. Already for Black Mirror the episodes are always ranked by quality, by season and all-in-all. You mass produce these kinds of TV shows and you end up with The Walking Dead which just takes on a repeat of the same thing.
I feel you both may be in a bubble; as far as I can tell, the two evergreen sitcoms general audience keeps rewatching are Friends and How I Met Your Mother. Those two shows just refuse to die.
It takes roughly 8 days to shoot a half-hour, and 10-12 days for an hour long episode. And that doesn't include 1-3 months pre-production. Crews work 12-18 hour days to make it happen as well; burnout is real.
It's also incredibly expensive, something Netflix some how disregarded when they decided to make/own most their own content. Thus the excess of low production quality shows
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadAt an episode a week, you run out of plot way faster, and your humans are basically signing on to have no other work.
You aren't going to attract the superstars with a "steady job". There are some incredibly talented TV serial actors however.
No, “almost every other person on the planet” doesn’t have a “steady job” in the way you’re implying.
There are portions of the workforce that work a 9-5 full time position. There are others that do contract work where they’re temporarily focused fully on one job for a short time span, and also contractors/consultants who take smaller time commitments and work multiple contracts at the same time.
This isn’t just a tech thing, it’s true across many industries.
Many shows ran for at least 5 years, and some ran forever (days of our lives would be one example).
So I don't think that is the problem. What is the issue is that Netflix wants to drag you in with a few big hits and then satiate you with much cheaper shows. Unfortunately that doesn't work because they don't have a massive content library, but they still act and price themselves as if they did.
But in more seriousness, I'm sure they are trying to optimize for producing the least amount of content in order to retain existing users.
I'll probably watch the 3rd since I heard it's slightly better, but then plan on cancelling my subscription.
The one in space featured excellent acting from the actor formerly of Breaking Bad. The level of human cruelty on display left me reeling for a good day and a half.
Honestly, this is one of the stronger seasons. My favorite episode remains Crocodile from a season or two ago: its actress remains criminally underrated.
Second episode is a slow burn but it delivers. Third one is the best episode imho, although the ending may shock you.
The fifth episode is classic Black Mirror and may be for some people the strongest in the series.
If they want to keep it going all they have to do is go back to some of their best episodes and write more stories set in those worlds.
What happened to lead to Metalhead? What’s a rich playboy’s life like in the universe of 15 million merits? Whats the prison industrial complex like in White Christmas? Whats crime like in White Bear? There’s so much content to mine!
Season 6 is thus a disappointment, the worst Black Mirror season.
I found it refreshing that they broadened away from “computer horror” which had started to get worn out. Now it’s closer to a modern twilight zone or outer limits.
I expect if we each listed our favorite episodes they’d be pretty different – which is great, and one of the things I like about Black Mirror.
Some filmmakers are all about ideas, others are about vibes, and others are about character-driven narrative (my preference). I think the best are ones who play with all three, which I think Black Mirror continues to do very well.
Personally I thought the episodes I watched were meh at best in most of the categories you listed, but obviously that's subjective.
I guess our expectations have just gone too high.
The standard strategy is to fund spinoffs of popular franchises. Marvel is a good example of this taken to the extreme, where there literally is a constant content stream.
But if I understand Black Mirror correctly, it's an anthology without a shared world/characters. There'd be diminishing returns much sooner with additional episodes. There's only so much to say about that theme. And we're living it every week anyway.
If they could invest in only the hits, they would.
If they could reliably improve their customers' happiness with their service, at minimal cost, they would.
If they could cut down on the expense of actors and sets and writers, they would.
recently a lot of Netflix’s most successful shows had deals where the creative team got paid more with each successive season. someone at Netflix set this up to incentivize binge-able shows, but since then, someone else decided it cost too much. so a lot of popular shows got canceled.
Apple TV has been quite good for this. There isn't really bad show so far.
There is a reason people would complain that "every week is the same story!". That's because the constraints of the medium meant that you had to keep deviations to a minimum.
Black Mirror is akin to making a movie for every episode. Every episode has different actors, which means they need to be cast. They have different locations, which means they need to be scouted or built. They have different characters which means a lot more work for writing because every character needs a backstory. Basically they have to start fresh for every episode.
Something like Stranger Things is sort of 1/2 way between -- they have their characters and actors, but they have a lot of locations, and the story varies wildly from episode to episode. Each season is like making a really long movie.
And that's just the production side of it.
From the business side it doesn't make a lot of sense either. The whole point is to provide fresh content for users. If you can provide a new show every month, that's a lot more compelling than a new episode of the same show.
There are many people who like series that are similar each week. Look at the popularity of shows like Friends or The Office.
Maybe a question is, why doesn’t Netflix produce those series that have many episodes but little change each episode?
> Audience gets trained to respond to and then like and then expect trite, hackneyed, numbing television shows, and to expect them to such an extent that when networks do occasionally abandon time-tested formulas we usually punish them for it by not watching novel forms in sufficient numbers to let them get off the ground. Hence the networks' bland response to its critics that in the majority of cases – and until the rise of hip metatelevision you could count the exceptions on one hand – "different" or "high-concept" programming simply didn't get ratings.
> But it's still not fair to blame television's shortage of originality on any lack of creativity among network talent. The truth is that we seldom get a chance to know whether anybody behind any TV show is creative, or more accurately that they seldom get a chance to show us. Despite the unquestioned assumption on the part of pop-culture critics that television's poor Audience, deep down, craves novelty, all available evidence suggests rather that the Audience really craves sameness but thinks, deep down, that it ought to crave novelty.
Always trying to be creative and different can be mentally taxing on viewers. Sometimes people just want comfort shows. With the usual.
As long as the users stay and they bring you the money, it is good enough.
Build an evergreen catalogue. Nobody is watching old sitcoms, but new people watch Lost everyday even though that also got badly affected by quantity requirements due to hype of the day.
That's funny because I know multiple people who re-watched Seinfeld and Curb multiple times, but I haven't heard anyone talk about Lost ever since it ended.
The entertainment is also different since a sitcom doesn't require much attention and is much more bingeable whereas regular shows are hit-or-miss.
But still you can't really mass produce Black Mirror or other shows without them going super downhill. Already for Black Mirror the episodes are always ranked by quality, by season and all-in-all. You mass produce these kinds of TV shows and you end up with The Walking Dead which just takes on a repeat of the same thing.
It's also incredibly expensive, something Netflix some how disregarded when they decided to make/own most their own content. Thus the excess of low production quality shows