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No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world
sighofannoyance @lemmy.world

Why'd they stopped making tv shows as good as x-files?

The special efx haven't gotten more expensive, cameras haven't risen in price, writers don't seem to be demanding particular high prices, netflix takes anything that you can pitch without saying the word disney.

So what in the world happened? X-files was an amazing show and watching it you are not only entertained but you care about mulder and scully. The show is genuinely a great time. Why did they stop making them like this?

137 comments

  • Might be that it is hard to make good art.

    And even the X Files got bad after about 5 seasons.

    • It's also not like good stuff has stopped being made. And back then there was also plenty of bad stuff. You just remember the good shows.

  • I'm going to interpret the question more as "why don't they make shows like "The X-Files" any more than on specific quality.

    The 90's was the last hurrah of quality serialized television. You were seeing a lot of improvements in the quality of writing and willingness to push against norms and standards. You could still make a shallow serialized series and they still do today, but you could make a show back then with a lore tied together from callbacks.

    So why did these kinds of shows stop? DVD sets and ubiquitous time-skipping technology meant that writers could shift from good serialized content to longer form and continuous stories. You started seeing shows filled with "previously on..." because it became the expectation that viewers watched all the episodes up to then. Streaming make it the default.

    There has been a recent push to go back to a serialized model, but the economics of the industry has changed. Writers rooms able to churn out 26 shows a year have been whittled away. You also have some actors that don't want the work schedule that comes with it. You also had a time where a show that lasted a year found it easier stay on air to get to the 100 episode minimum to make syndication valuable; there isn't that profit motive any more.

  • Shows like that are still happening.

    The real issue is that instead of 5-15 channels, there are dozens-hundreds, plus a dozen streaming service, and intellectual property is constantly pinging back and forth between them all.

    No media has a reliable "home" you can consistently access it from. And when it does you still run into the discoverability issue. So many shows are made that you can't reasonably scroll through all of them, so personal recommendations and algorithms ultimately dictate what we find.

    If you want unusual and stand-out sci-fi then I'd recommend Twin Peaks: The Return, assuming you've seen Twin Peaks.

    Also the show "Dark" on Netflix is incredible.

    I still have a cue of newer stuff I haven't gotten to because there's so much to try.

    I think what we've really lost is the social element. When FAR fewer things were on, and everyone had to "tune in" to see new episodes, it meant a ton more people would be watching the same thing at the same time.

    Now the default has become everything on demand, and released in full seasons at a time. "Dark" is actually from several years ago, but became big in the US just a few years ago, and I just found it last year.

    The viewing and Fandom experiences are just more fragmented and scattered now.

  • I've never watched the X-Files, but the crossover episode with the Simpsons is one of my favorites.

    Since you seems to be a big fan, i'm gonna ask.

    Does Mulder always show people a photo of him wearing a speedo?

  • there have been good shows since but ill admit there is a lot of crap to wade through as the various media streams pump out anything they can.

  • I think a lot of shows are AWESOME, but then late-stage capitalistic enshittification happens and they become... far less so, and often quite TERRIBLE even, though ostensibly still have the same title, even though nowhere near being an identical show.

    One super-good example is Stranger Things, where the first season was really quite good! So many homages to nerd culture like E.T. and D&D - it was fantastic!:-) As I read though, the pair of creators had 2 rules: never use CGI, and absolutely do not "sell out", i.e. a story should want to be told, not sold merely for the sake of cash. So after the first season where they made it b/c of their love for the craft, you can guess how the subsequent seasons played out (I believe one of the pair even quit over it).

    Arguably a better example is The Walking Dead - it started off REALLY good, but then... well... it too "sold out". Actually I keep trying to force myself to get through it, I even started watching it over again from the start (a couple times now) thinking that would help, but have yet to accomplish this feat.

    Another is Designated Survivor. It had some big-name actors, most of whom quit (I think the show was sold to a different network... or something?), and the last season was just terrible, limping along before they finally put it out of its misery and ended it.

    The really fantastic shows - like Star Trek - had to prove themselves, then the creators were given leeway to subsequently make great sequels and spin-offs and even entirely unrelated titles. Fun story: Gene Roddenberry even created shows after his death, as his wife took his unfinished notes and lead their creation under his vision, like Earth: Final Conflict.

    TLDR: why offer you a good show when they can offer you a crappy show that they made for a tenth of the price, yet charge you the full amount?

    (though stupidly enough, they also seem to be trying to offer us even more terrible shows that cost 50x the price to make, and yet somehow suck all the more for that!? anyway it all seems to be based on greed + arrogance - they want to make money, but they do not want to put in the effort to actually earn it, e.g. by paying the actors a decent wage)

137 comments