Hollywood is dried out, and I truly live in the wrong decade.
How I wish I could turn back time and live in the era of good television and when theaters were full of people excited to watch good movies.
To live when Ten Things I Hate About You, She’s the Man, or Gilmore Girls first came out.
I am rewatching Gilmore Girls now, and it reminded me of how sucky the TV Hollywood tosses at us is now. We used to get shows that had ten seasons of 20 or more episodes, and the episodes were 30 minutes or longer.
Now, most shows have five to ten episodes that range from 15 to 30 minutes and only three seasons. I miss an era of television I never got to fully experience.
Most of my favorite TV shows are older: Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, and Gilmore Girls. And our world definitely needs more shows like them. These are shows that are vastly popular and still discussed over social media and in person. They are rewatched all the time. My aunt will finish the entirety of Modern Family and then start again at season one.
Instead of making new shows with the same vibe as the shows above, they make sequels or spin-offs that are cheesy, not good reflections of the originals, and are short. That ’70s Show got a new spin-off, That ’90s Show—it had one season, the episodes were roughly 20 minutes long, and there were only 10 episodes. This is how most spin-offs go.
There is only one spin-off that I truly enjoyed, and that is Full House‘s spin-off, Fuller House. It had the same beloved characters and vibe of the original show, it had five seasons, and it had over ten episodes in each season.
Sadly, that is the only spin-off that comes to mind.
Considering how much media we consume and how much media is put out for us to consume, one would hope it was more than a little entertaining. But lackluster is all that comes to mind.
Hollywood is so concerned with money that they play it safe and make sequels, spin-offs, and live-action movies, knowing people will watch them. I’m so bored of them playing it safe. We need new ideas.
When Hollywood finally makes something original, I jump at the chance to watch it. I have recently started watching Derry Girls (which came out in 2020), and this show has me cackling. Sadly, this show has still befallen Hollywood’s laziness. It is short 20-minute episodes, roughly six episodes per season, and only three seasons long.
A prime example of the steep decline of Hollywood is Marvel. I remember the pure excitement of a new Marvel movie coming out, the theaters full to the brim of people sharing my same excitement. The movies were a crazy experience, not just something to briefly entertain me. My friends and I used to talk for hours, days, and even weeks about the latest movie.
COVID has affected the amount of people who go to movie theaters; streaming is much easier, so it is fair, but that should not impact the quality of the production being streamed. Whether I am streaming a show from Netflix at home or am watching a new movie in a theater, I expect that my money is going to something good and entertaining, and Hollywood simply is not delivering.
