proteinnerd wrote:paisley1 wrote:1. Geralt gets a contract.
2. Geralt tracks a monster.
3. Geralt plans how to kill a monster. (The bulk of the story)
4. Geralt kills a monster.
5. Geralt gets paid and acquires new equipment, and develops new abilites to use on another monster in the next episode.
6. Geralt hooks up with sorceresses.
7. Repeat for 10 seasons.
8. Make back your $221 million.
I would watch the hell out of this.
So would I. And... If you look at the history of robust TV shows that stand the test of time, so do most people.
Original Star Trek that spawned decades of IP - Was episodic (procedural), with some serial elements. But mostly you can watch them in any order and they are self-contained.
The X-Files was basically 'the mystery being of the week' for 11 seasons - again with a B-thread woven through it but mostly episodic/procedural.
And we could go on and on with shows like that that just work.
But the other part of that formula isn't just about procedural v. serial; its about episode count. The *landscape* of the show so to speak. You can run that proven formula of procedural with a serial B-thread when you have 22 episodes a year. You can't do it when you have 10 as we have in streaming platforms.
When you have only 10 episodes you can't afford even 1 bad episode because that means 10% of the season is bad. Audience won't accept a 'budget saving' episode in order to have a flashy finale. And you can't run a B and C thread woven through the story when you only have 10 episodes.
10 episodes works for things like "Countdown"... where you have almost zero world building required. Show premise: Task force assembles to take down terrorist. Ok, done. Audience knows all they need to know because we know what agents and cops and task forces and terrorists and current day LA is. Virtually no time required to set up this 10 episode show. And they limited the scope to the primary story. Cool. That works for 10 episodes.
But 10 episodes doesn't work when you actually need to WORLD BUILD. The Witcher has too much building required for short seasons. Sci-fi or fantasy in general are a problem in 10 episodes. Current Star Trek is kinda-sorta getting away with short seasons because the world building was done over decades and people are walking in to nuTrek well aware of the landscape. You don't have to explain what a starship is, or what Starfleet is, or what a Klingon is. But even in Trek its starting to wear off with people getting fatiqued by the new format of the shows. 24 episode seasons of TNG and DS9 work. 10 episodes of Strange New Worlds does not.
And personally, I think we're seeing the same here. Another fantasy show requiring world building but not having the air time to do it. So the producers are trying to shoe horn in the parts they think can't be skipped and leaving everything they can on the editing room floor. In this specific case, its not helping that the costumes don't live up to good cosplayer quality, and the special effects are of a quality that lots of YouTubers can do it home these days. (Like those guys that do videos of "We rebuilt Tron in a weekend" and "We rebuilt the Deathstar trench flight in a day" kind of content.)
Follow