My wife and I watched through The Sopranos recently. One episode per week, the way it was “meant to be viewed.” We were both incredibly frustrated with exactly what you describe here: single-episode manufactured drama to keep viewers coming back for the next week. Entirely too often the writers would conjure some conflict at the beginning of an episode only to resolve it at the end with nothing changed. When this happens in any other television we call it “filler” and it is fine to be skipped. I thought Seinfeld was supposed to be the show about nothing, but my god the Sopranos spent an awful lot of time not developing the characters at all.

Also, how many fucking times did they get away with using a dream sequence to reveal something to the lead character?? It’s lazy writing.

3/10 show. James Gandolfini gave a great performance, Tony Soprano was a boring character.

It’s not the CSuite that’s a problem. The general populous is stupid. There’s no way to sugar coat it. They don’t keep up with current affairs, they don’t have enough intrinsic knowledge of other subjects to allow for witty or satirical productions, or even just social commentary sitcoms. And if you make one line out of a series that offends one person somewhere, your show is cancelled, writers fired, etc…

It’s easy to see where the problem is, and the audience doesn’t want it. They want curated news and media that makes them happy and agreeable. Exactly what an algorithm in tiktok does.

I call it “netflix syndrome” and see it creaping into basically everything, its so annoying. pointless romances, callback settups that don’t pay off, saying the quiet part out loud/handholding the audience through the plot/losing the art of “show, don’t tell”, awful writing and casting, cringe-inducing diologue… I could go on all day, everyone’s had a friend recommend one of these shows only you to find it unwatchable in the first 15 minutes.