I used to call it netflix syndrome but I think its just bad writing industry-wide

Everyone is obsessed with plot development at the expense of entertainment. The great writers know how to do both. Like for example in The Boys. That show has something spectacular happen in every single episode, while also developing the plot and the characters.
- I think part of the problem is that everything is trying to be some cinematic masterpiece vs back then a lot of shows were made purely for the fun premise. The Boys definitely found a balance between the two. What I would do for another show like Chuck.
- I'd look to a show like The Good Place for a perfect balance.
  It absolutely matters if you haven't seen previous episodes, but each episode is still, on it's own, great.
- The boys are getting pretty repetitive though. If i have to listen to the French man talk about Marseille one more time i will break.
  The next season is the final one. Good thing they know when to call it.
It's a side effect of streaming. Heavenly seralzed used to have two big drawbacks. If people didn't catch the first few episodes that didn't have a way to get into the story. The story also had to hold peoples interest for a week before the next episode dropped. So only the best seltzer shows lasted.
Now you start the show when you want at the beginning. So instead of making an episode that's entertaining and when next week come around you think it was good last week I'll watch that again you get a show that encourages setting stuff up and the implying it's about be resolved right before the episode end.
It's great for getting you to binge and then getting renewed on a stemmer. Stemming is the best way to watch shows produced for the old weekly broadcast system but not the best environment for developing new shows.
- My brother in Christ, please proof read if you're gonna post paragraphs.
- "What did Autocorrect fumble?" is the new Cockney rhyming slang.

Pretty much the same with movies of the superhero and other genres. You gotta start at the beginning and only in the last 15min is Surf Dracula at max power. Then you get a couple of uninspired sequels (because sequels print money regardless), and eventually a reboot where they retell the same old Dracula-Finds-Surfing-In-His-Time-Of-Grief origin story but with a younger actor.

Nah, the first two movies are building up to showing you Surf Dracula a full power, with things being mostly in place at the end of movie 2. Then movie 3 comes along and Dracula is already over the hill and has given up on surfing.

The internet really does have everything if you search for it...

James Bond and Ethan Hunt are always just getting framed and running from their own organizations nowadays instead of doing cool missions.

Which is not at all what it's supposed to be about. It's annoying. I hate how gritty and dark everything tries to be these days.
- Nice to have a balance though. Some of the Moore and Connery era movies were basically Austin Powers.
New James Bond doesn't even have goofy gadgets

One reason I prefer watching older shows is that the format made the writing so concise. They can fit two plots and some character development into 42 minutes, unlike newer shows where it's twenty minutes of dialog and narration every episode. For example, the last season of Discovery had as much happen as two episodes of TNG.

On the other hand, those shows hit the big reset button every week. I'd love something episodic, but what happens in previous episodes still has an effect on future episodes. Star Trek started to do that a little with DS9, but even there... O'Brien is in a mind prison for what he thinks is 20 years and he's fine in the next episode?
- We call that Star Gate.
- He's not fine on the inside
Disney Marvel shows will have the pacing of a 20 episode season but end on episode 8.
Also the ducking voice over at the end hammering home the moral of the story. No matter if it makes any sense at all.
Because sometime we all need to
<verb>
a
<noun>
, even if
<unrelated thing>
. There is so much
<emotion>
that causes us to bla bla bla I can't even write this bullshit.
- Shows these days also do a lot of "tell don't show." Yes, I know the McGuffin is important and why, I don't need you to explain it to me with a full paragraph of dialog.
Gave up on the Handmaid’s Tale, as half of each episode was a flashback to one of the characters visiting a cafe in the times before Trump’s second term - which the writers probably thought was brilliant character and world building, but was actually wheelspinning.
Wait, I just described Lost too.
- I feel like the only show ive seen recently that does a good flash back system is the Fallout TV show. Also as an aside that show needs a date system to show how long has passed between scenes.

And then it's not picked up for a second season.

Which is a shame because if you look at the source material (a single issue comic from 1973 where he battles King Triton in Atlantis to free the Bikini Lesbians) you really need to understand the history of the surfboard to fully appreciate his character.

It shows 5 mins of surfing if you're lucky. More likely it shows him about to drop into his first big wave with cheering in the background, then fades to black

It is then canceled while season 2 is in pre-production. The head writer eventually reveals S2 would've dealt with the rivalry between Dracula and up-and-coming surfer Nosferatu(played by the same actor as Dracula. Absolutely no one acknowledges their resemblance), leading up to the big Surf championships
- Nosurferatu?
Forgot to mention that his star-crossed love interest, a gay priest and silver mirror salesman whose whole value system was turned upside down by their forbidden love, is shown cheering in a close-up after their tumultuous breakup earlier in the season
Don't stop believin'

In the latest movie adaption of the Surf Dracula (2024) by DC they already introduced the less grounded and more magical elements of the Surf Dracula franchise and even allready introduced the Surfer Werewolves to sell more toys and build up an expanded universe. They also did not even use Van Chil'sing as his archenemy but made him fight a gigantic sky hole that spawned an army of faceless minions.

F&&k you, you F&&king F&&k!!
I had to Google this because I thought it was an actual thing!!
Take your upvote and die a horrible painful death!!
[have a great weekend!]

I literally got the ending of Surf Dracula 2024 spoiled for me at work the DAY AFTER IT CAME OUT! Like who has time to watch all 24 episodes in one evening, let alone have the audacity to talk about it out loud in a public setting...

Is this post about "Cobra Kai"?

I like watching it and yelling "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE ADULTS DOING WHILE THIS IS GOING ON???" and "WATCH OUT FOR THOSE STAIRS!!!"

and they’re always whispering all the time too. it drives me crazy. nobody whispers that much in real life. it doesn’t make people sound more mysterious

Check your vlc settings to ensure the speaker setup matches your arrangement (so it's not sending 5.1 to some stereo speakers)
- I wish we just had sound infrastructure that was capable of taking arbitrary input channels and then remixing them to the output channels that are actually there. It just seems like an essential feature of modern sound systems on PC (and in general, really).

I hope you like sad acoustic covers of beach boys songs, cause you're getting sad acoustic covers of beach boys songs.

Throw in a few pipe organ covers and you have yourself a deal.
Give me the beach boys and free my soul
- Well, East Coast ghouls can rip I really dig those fangs they bare And the Southern ghouls with the way they kill They drain me low when I'm down there The Midwest Werewolves' slaughter Really lasts all moonlit night And the Northern ghouls with the way they hiss They keep their thralls dead cold all night...
  I wish they all could be blood-suh-sucking ghoooouuuls

Nostalgia good, modern bad, blah blah, whatever. I just want to see Surf Dracula.

I’m guessing it’s a mystery and Surf Dracula is trying to find out why there’s so many vampire killings when vampires decided to chill out and live along side humans or maybe the vampires are getting to close to attacking the human love of their life or something and there’s gonna be an episode where Surf Dracula has to dress in a big, rubber, human suit to go day surfing (you know so the sunlight doesn’t kill them) to crack the case.

Don't worry, I heard Surf Dracula sucks.
lol no, it’s a three part miniseries about how Surf Dracula uses the power of painting in watercolor to help those with general anxiety disorder.
No, that would mean they will have to wear the suit every episode, it can't be a one off goof.
Just have them apply liberal amounts of waterproof suncream. Or just say vampires can survive the sun in this universe and that stereotypes are mean.
- Ah see, my assumption was that Surf Dracula usually surfs at night

Maybe I'm basic, but I love exposition over pretty much all else. I watched the entirety of Adventure Time despite not really being a fan of the humor or the main characters just because I craved more information about the history of Ooo.

Adventure Time's exactly the right show for that addiction. Most episodes aren't moving along some overarching plot, and don't neatly tie off and return to the status quo. They're like - that happened, it was fucked-up, you gotta deal with it. The show hardly goes three consecutive episodes without dipping into mortality salience or outright existential horror. And then what becomes crucially important two seasons later was a cutaway gag with the tiny elephant grandma.
To anyone who hasn't watched the show: there is an episode where the main characters are transformed into a bowl of soup and a runny egg (respectively) when they attempt to stop two wizards from going to Mars so they can kill God. It is titled "You Forgot Your Floaties."
- Lemon guy : Aaaaaaaaaaaa
i barely even watch adventure time but i spent a lot of time reading the theories of nuclear war and all that stuff
Isn't that what Wikipedia is best used for?
- Wikipedia is information that's already been interpreted and retold by someone else. Nothing beats going to the source for your info

Have you seen the 1979 Mad Max film? He's only mad for the final 10 minutes, he's pretty chilled up until that point

Damn that is a solid movie. Such a unique apocalypticing world setting, shame how it ended up McGenericwood Fury Road garbage.
- "That ain't the goose."
  What I say after watching the "sequels".

So close so close

Where can I watch that? The plot is awesome.
- If you have a library card, it is on Kanopy.

I do like the idea of serf dracuala with the intent on telling how he came to be a count but I don't want a humanising tale I want it to be pretty much a horror movie with just one troublesome person managing to run away at the end

Drink the blood of the rich.

Dragon Ball Z: "That's cute."

My dude, don't slander Dragon Ball like that. There is a fight in every episode. Or more like there is half a fight every episode. Okay maybe one tenth of a fight every episode, but at least it is not about exposition or flashbacks. Dudes fight and dudes get more opportunities to fight. Maybe just hold a finder above the "skip 10 seconds" button for the long shots.
- Mans spends 10 episodes just raising his power level, 20 getting beat into a pulp, eats a senzu bean and then its like 5 episodes until the finale.
  The first time goku fell of snake way i knew we were in for some shit.
I was gonna make a meme with the black kid holding his cup trying to look away nervously, and label him anime pacing. Close enuf.

Smallville posting

I was going to mention Smallville! The makers of it were told "no tights, no flights". And that was before the MCU and superhero oversaturation/fatigue! I actually agree that this led to creative writing early in the show as they kept him very grounded.
But I think a lot of people (myself included) wanted to watch Clark become Superman, especially after watching the show for years. Him and his friends went up against increasingly powerful antagonists and plots but his own character progression just seemed stagnant as he ran along the ground and threw the latest "monster of the week" into some scenery. Again and again...
- Couldn't agree more!

Some recent animes too.

Now I desperately want to know how he got that surfboard. How much does this hypothetical streaming service cost?

Pint of blood per month.
- Is that blood streaming?
- That’s nothing!

Lol too true

Do you listen to the Weekly Planet by any chance? I've never seen this before, then they mentioned it in the latest ep a few days ago and now it's popped up.

I don't, but when I looked this up earlier, it seemed like this tweet must have got viral a while back, because there's lots of discussion of "Surf Dracula Syndrome" out there.

I had AI write me a script for a pilot episode now I really want to see it.

Surf Dracula - Pilot Episode: "The Tide of Terror"## INT. HAWAIIAN BEACHSIDE BUNGALOW - NIGHTThe camera pans over a collection of surfboards, each more colorful than the last. A full moon casts a silver glow through the open window. We see a figure, DRACULA (50s, charming, with a mysterious aura), dressed in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and board shorts, looking out at the ocean.DRACULA(contemplative)The night is young, and the waves call to me. But duty beckons...

A knock at the door. Dracula turns, his eyes flashing red for a split second.## EXT. HAWAIIAN BEACH - NIGHTDracula opens the door to find DETECTIVE LEI (30s, sharp, no-nonsense) holding a flashlight and a notepad.DETECTIVE LEIDracula, we need your... unique skills. There's been another incident. DRACULA(smirking)Lead the way, Detective. They walk down to the beach where a crowd has gathered around something in the sand.## EXT. HAWAIIAN BEACH - CRIME SCENE - NIGHTDracula kneels by the body of a local surfer, his board snapped in two. The crowd murmurs with fear and curiosity.DRACULA(examining the body)No water in the lungs, no signs of a struggle... This was no ordinary drowning. Detective Lei looks on, skeptical but intrigued.DETECTIVE LEIWhat are you suggesting? DRACULA(standing, addressing the crowd)This was the work of something unnatural. And I intend to find out what. The crowd gasps. Dracula's eyes meet Lei's, a silent promise of collaboration and mystery.## INT. DRACULA'S BUNGALOW - NIGHTDracula sits at a desk covered in ancient texts and modern forensics equipment. He's deep in thought when his trusty sidekick, FRANKIE (20s, surfer dude with a secret intelligence), bursts in.FRANKIEDude, the whole beach is talking about the "Curse of the Tidal Fiend"! DRACULA(dryly)Superstitions often have a kernel of truth, Frankie. Help me look into the local legends. They dive into research, the camera focusing on a particular legend: "The Tidal Fiend, a creature of the deep, comes with the high tide to claim the souls of the unwary."## EXT. HAWAIIAN BEACH - NIGHTDracula and Frankie set a trap for the Tidal Fiend, using a special surfboard as bait. The moon is high, the tide comes in, and a shadowy figure approaches from the water...DRACULA(whispering)Get ready, Frankie. The hunt is on. The screen fades to black as the sound of the waves crescendos.VOICEOVERNext time on Surf Dracula, the mystery deepens, and the danger grows. Will our heroes catch the Tidal Fiend, or will they become its next victims? Tune in to find out!

The 80s synth-pop theme song plays as the credits roll. FADE OUT.

TBH I'm kinda over seeing AI generated content in discussions like this. It used to be novel and quite impressive, but now that I've seen this type of thing so many times and the reality of the negative impacts of LLMs has set in, it just doesn't hit for me at all. It's fun to speculate about an LLM writing TV scripts, but my worry is that this will become an actual thing in the near future: soulless generated "content" companies can sell us without having to pay hardworking and talented writers, and that shit just bums me out.
Anyway, nothing against you, and I don't fault you for posting it, but that's my thoughts. Maybe I'm in the minority though, who knows?
- Nah, it's drivel.

Back in the day, people spelled all of their words like they're not texting on a pre-t9 phone and driving at the same time.

But we can't all get what we want. At least 1995 gave us t9 phones.