Stop making us wait for new episodes

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The anticipation builds as fans watch and wait for long-delayed new episodes.Get your popcorn ready, because it might take awhile.

I recently watched one of my favorite television shows and stumbled upon the last episode of the season. Hoping to continue my binge, I looked for an answer, and realized the next season was yet to be released but promised to be coming soon! These words deceived me, as I presumed that it would come out by the end of 2025. Wrong! It is coming out in November of 2026.

By that time next year, I will be a college graduate, and my life may be completely different; who knows if I will even want to watch the new season of this show? Of course, this is not a unique experience; many people know the pain of realizing that the show they have been obsessed with will not be releasing new content until one or even two years later. Even so, this cannot be normalized, and I refuse to stand for it!

There are many reasons why a gigantic pause between seasons can have negative effects on the audience. The first of these I have already mentioned: people change. This is especially true of shows geared towards younger audiences—something that was once very hip or cool can quickly become immature or cringeworthy. 

13 Reasons Why (2017-2025) is a great example of this dilemma. It was extremely popular when it was first released, but there was a year gap between the releases of the third and fourth seasons. This caused the audience to lose interest in watching, with many previously committed fans never even finishing the completed show. Another reason why this structure is negatively received by the audience is that viewers often forget what happened in the last season. If a show takes a year to release a new season or episode, that means most viewers will have gone an entire year without watching or engaging with the show in any way.. 

I have a personal example for this one  from the show Manifest (2018-2023), which has four seasons, the most recent of which was released in June of 2023. Just four seasons of the show spanned the length of five years. This show was very complicated and contained many specific details that were important to understand what was going on, making it difficult to keep track with such long breaks in between seasons. I watched the first season and loved it, but as new episodes came out, I was consistently getting lost or confused and ended up abandoning the show because of it. 

Another major reason to avoid these long breaks has to do with the reality of casting younger actors: they are going to get older! If the show does not have a time jump in between seasons, how can you explain an actor magically aging? This has caused problems in many shows before, with fans even mocking the ways shows will try to make actors look younger. 

This is not to say that I do not appreciate the hard work that many people put into the creation of television shows and the privilege I have at my fingertips to pick and choose what media to consume—but there are many shows that release episodes in a timely manner, so I know it is possible to avoid these problems! 

I know I am not alone in this opinion, and if you agree, come tell The Lamron about it! We want to hear everyone's weird, freaky, cool, or unpopular views on television shows, movies, and music.