Why waiting three years for a TV season is ruining the experience

Streaming has transformed television into a cinematic experience in recent years, with services prioritising large budgets and feature-length episodes over fast production schedules. As a result, television has moved away from annual season releases, instead leaving audiences waiting two to three years between instalments of their favourite shows. But while these gaps can build anticipation and strengthen fan culture online, they also damage momentum and create unrealistic expectations. The modern TV industry therefore exists in a balance between creating event-style television and maintaining long-term audience interest. 

While shows in the late 90s and early 2000s had 20-episode seasons released yearly, such as Friends and One Tree Hill, there is now a trend of series being produced more like cinema. Streaming platforms have normalised shorter episode counts in favour of larger budgets, longer runtimes, and cinematic production quality, turning episodes into mini movies.  

Stranger Things became known for feature-length episodes and extensive visual effects, taking just over ten years to produce five seasons that were mainly eight episodes long. Reportedly, Season 5 cost between $400 and $480 million to make, placing it among the most expensive series productions in history. Furthermore, the MCU shows on Disney+ resemble movies, with its 2021 releases Loki, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Solider allegedly costing around $25 million per episode. Naturally, this larger-scale production requires more time for filming and post-production work, leading streaming services to prioritise spectacle and higher budget, cinematic quality over consistency in release schedules. Audiences now receive less content despite waiting much longer for releases, altering viewer expectations surrounding TV releases permanently.

Despite this, moderate waiting periods can increase fan engagement, turning television releases into cultural events. Social media culture has allowed fandoms to remain active between releases in ways that were previously not possible. The time between seasons can allow fandoms to grow online through theories and speculation, with this higher anticipation and emotional investment making releases much more exciting for fans. 

The Summer I Turned Pretty benefited from gaps between seasons because the production timeline mirrored the age progression seen in the books. The wait also allowed audiences to discuss theories and relationships online, with the anticipation for season three especially strong due to viewers being emotionally connected to the characters. In this case, the delay felt natural rather than frustrating, creating excitement rather than losing audience interest. 

However, it is when delays become excessive that anticipation turns into frustration, destroying momentum and audience connection. Long gaps between seasons risks damaging the emotional connection audiences build with a series, especially when considering the age and contextual interests of the spectator on the shows’ first release. As audiences grow older, their interests inevitably change, with long waits between seasons meaning shows can struggle when their demographic has outgrown it or fandoms have become disconnected. This is also evident through the cast members who can visibly age, which disrupts continuity. Again, Stranger Things experienced massive gaps between seasons, with the cast in Season 4 and 5 appearing significantly older despite little time passing within the story itself. This also meant that unresolved plotlines between seasons become hard to follow after years away from the show.

Outer Banks also lost major momentum between seasons three and four, with the story feeling outdated and disconnected from its release in 2020. In lockdown at thirteen, OBX provided a great sense of escapism and the teenage experience that many of us felt we were missing out on. But when season four came out in November of 2024, many original spectators were eighteen and no longer interested in that same style of show.

These long delays can also create major issues surrounding unrealistic fan expectations. Longer waits give fandoms more time to create predictions, often leading to disappointment when the show cannot meet these expectations. Stranger Things developed one of the most active fandoms during its long delays, with fan theories surrounding later seasons proving incredibly detailed. A major theory grew surrounding a potential romance between Will and Mike, with fans certain from the first half of season five that their relationship would be made canon. Other fan theories became more interesting to viewers than the actual storyline presented by the Duffer’s, meaning that the ending left many fans disappointed.

Despite this, there is also an argument that consistency does not always prevent audience decline. Some shows maintained yearly releases but still lost popularity, with too many seasons leading to audience fatigue. Riverdale encapsulates this, consistently releasing new seasons which became progressively more unrealistic and disconnected from the original plot, ultimately losing viewers.

The cast of 2026’s adaptation of Off Campus is allegedly returning to filming within the next few months, which may help maintain the excitement and audience momentum that the show has received over the last weeks. But audiences still value quality and storytelling over just speed, and the ideal release schedule is likely somewhere between yearly releases and multi-year waits.

Ultimately, television must balance cinematic ambition with audience patience. The future success of TV therefore depends on finding a balance between quality and consistent audience engagement.