Episodes of The Bear, Stranger Things and Lena Dunham’s new show Too Much are stretching the limits of television and reducing our enjoyment in the process
Babylon 5 did it pretty well. One complete story, told across 5 seasons of 22 episodes each. Some of the episodes which I thought were filler on first watch turned out to involve critical plot elements in later seasons. I want to say seasons 2-4 were really tightly focused. Season 5 kinda slowed down, mostly because season 4 was written to be a finale in case they got canceled.
Babylon 5 did it pretty well. One complete story, told across 5 seasons of 22 episodes each. Some of the episodes which I thought were filler on first watch turned out to involve critical plot elements in later seasons. I want to say seasons 2-4 were really tightly focused. Season 5 kinda slowed down, mostly because season 4 was written to be a finale in case they got canceled.