Once upon a time, there was this thing called cable TV. It gave you access to a lot of different shows, most of which were terrible and didn’t seem fair in terms of cost, but hey, what else could you do, read? Many of the stations’ shows were mostly just stuff that played in the background while you and your grandma had tea, but at least you had a lot of choices and a lot of shows to watch. Sometimes, a season was up to 24 episodes, and even if the show wasn’t perfect, at least it had time to grow, especially from one season to the next. Then Netflix came along.
I’m sure you know roughly what the rest of it is: it’s a cheap alternative to cable, with all your favorite shows, finally introducing original content you’d only see on cable. One of the problems, however, is that there’s just so little content. Seasons have gotten progressively shorter, to the point where most of the popular shows sold on subscription are around 8-10 hours per episode. It’s done quite a bit of damage to television, with the latest victim being the newest addition to the Star Wars universe, The Acolyte (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST FIVE EPISODES).
The story of The Acolyte is set about 100 years before the events of the original Star Wars movie, during the heyday of the Republic, when society is at peace, but something sinister is going on behind the scenes. A man who looks like a Sith (I won’t reveal his identity) has been manipulating a young Force-sensitive woman to go around killing Jedi Knights. Of course, things are complicated because this young woman has a twin sister from whom she has been separated, who is also Force-sensitive and a former Jedi trainee. There are also a few supporting characters, Yord, a somewhat incompetent Jedi Knight, and Jecki, a smart and confident Padawan.
They’re both interesting enough characters, their performances are generally entertaining, and there’s some room for interesting development if the show allows it. But in episode five, they’re both killed off by the show’s main villain. Both of their deaths are brutal, which is intentional because it’s clear they’re meant to shock you. They’re certainly surprising, but annoyingly, they’re also frustrating.
The thing is, you never really get to know them in the five episodes they’re in. Neither of them had an in-depth backstory, there just wasn’t time to tell it, so I didn’t feel all that sad when they were killed off. I just couldn’t help but wonder if I would have felt differently if it had been a full season. Despite all the criticism (and you can ignore most of it), there was some great writing in the show; the question of who can use the Force, the different cultural interpretations of it, and the roles each twin plays is kind of a constant theme in Star Wars, isn’t it?
What really makes a series great, though, are the mostly inconsequential episodes that give time to side characters that might not get a chance to be in the main plot. The Believer only has eight episodes total, and even if Yord and Jecki return (which I doubt, since their deaths are certain), it would just mean they’re here for convenience, rather than using them to tell an interesting story.
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However, streamers aren’t that interested in long-running shows these days. Those shows are expensive, and we all know how streamers feel about paying the people who made them so successful. So we’re now left with shows that might only run for one season, and we eventually forget about them until one day someone on Twitter says “Man, remember that show that was worth seven seasons? Why y’all didn’t watch it?” We respond with “We did watch it, but in an age where streamers refuse to share their view counts and can’t be held accountable in any meaningful way, what are we supposed to do?” Nothing changes. Like I said, I’m frustrated.
Television can do a lot of things that movies can’t, but it’s clear that streaming doesn’t want that to happen – Maya Hawke recently commented that the final season of Stranger Things felt like eight movies, which really says a lot about the state of television we’re in right now. It’s okay once in a while, but it feels like the norm now, and to be honest, part of the reason I love anime so much is because the seasons are usually so long, and if I just want to watch a 20+ minute episode and be done with it, I can.
I know things will probably stay this way forever, but even so, I can’t help but miss the old days of television. The 2010s were supposed to be a perfect period for television, but over the past decade it feels like all of it has degenerated into simple content, always something to watch but never really engaging. I liked The Believer, it was a pretty good show. But it could have been so much better.