[ldmosquera]

One thing I hate about modern TV shows is that they have been further sliced into ~5-10min sequences between ad breaks, and even if you watch them without ads, you get narratively unnecessary cliff hangers just before a break, complete with dramatic music and a closeup of some dramatic gesture, trivially resolved in the next 5 seconds after the break.

You're constantly yanked out of the narrative in service of ads even if you never see them, which has disfigured the medium.

[crazygringo]

I think you've got it backwards.

That was the hallmark of old TV, on networks. Since the start of TV in the 50's.

There are tons of modern TV shows that don't do anything you're talking about because they're made for streamers or paid TV without ads.

It sounds like you watch different shows than I do, but I watch a lot of TV and haven't seen what you're talking about in many, many years. Not with Squid Game or Stranger Things on Netflix, or Andor on Disney+, or White Lotus on HBO, or Severance on Apple TV+, or even something like Alien: Earth currently on FX/Hulu.

You might want to find better places for watching TV...

[pests]

This is mostly an issue for content produced to still be on regular tv and streaming, like on Paramount. Star Trek Discovery and Strange New Worlds, for example, are not as dramatic as described above but you can always spot where the adbreak would have been. Cut to black and a re-establishing shot at the least. These are modern shows like you describe but still the TV medium has some influence.

One thing I do notice more and appreciate from streaming (sense8 in particular) is that shows are more varied in their runtime. Episodes being 40 minutes to 75 in length just depending on the needs of the plot, not even finale related or anything

[esseph]

Also an issue with YouTube...

[red369]

I agree with your feeling that those mini cliff-hangers break the immersion, especially when watching without ad-breaks, although I can mostly deal with it. I agree with some of the other replies though, that it is more prevalent in older shows.

I find that laugh-tracks are the aspect of older shows which I find harder to ignore. Still worth bearing with for some old shows though, especially as I gradually stop hearing them.

[beAbU]

Modern tv shows are more often than not released in a single go on a streaming service, intended to be binged in a single go. Often the episodes form a single narrative and a single episode cannot stand alone. The MOTD format is all but dead.

Do you have an example of a modern show that has the dramatic-music-and-cliffhanger ad-break?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>One thing I hate about modern TV shows is that they have been further sliced into ~5-10min sequences between ad breaks,

If it is on a broadcast tv network, it's not really worth watching. Sure, there are the one or two exceptional shows, but with so much premium content, why would you want to watch that?

[red369]

I assume you mean it's not really worth watching if it's currently on broadcast TV?

Surely there's a huge list of old broadcast TV network shows that are worth watching, and that still suffer from the ad-break problem to various degrees.

Obviously I'm pulling from a wide time-period, and I'll probably get some of these wrong because I'm not in the the US and don't quite grok the network/cable divide, but off the top of my head, I think these are/were all worth watching: Seinfeld, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks and Geeks, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Community, Schitt's Creek, The Office, The X-Files, various Star Trek series, Cheers

That list could be easily improved on, but I assume it's missing your point anyway if you were only talking about current broadcast network TV (if it exists :) )

[thaumasiotes]

> I'll probably get some of these wrong because I'm not in the the US and don't quite grok the network/cable divide

Almost all of those are broadcast shows. I strongly suspect that all of them are, but I don't have personal knowledge of the entire list.

As far as I can tell, the divide is pretty straightforward:

Cable: nudity

Broadcast: everything else

In theory there's no requirement for a cable show to have nudity, but since they're allowed to, they all do.

[dragonwriter]

> As far as I can tell, the divide is pretty straightforward:

> Cable: nudity

> Broadcast: everything else

This is almost entirely wrong; non-premium cable (which is and was always the vast majority of cable) had and observed essentially the same structure and content rules as broadcast, with ad breaks and no swearing or nudity. Premium cable where each channel or later small branded group of channels is a separate surcharge on top of the broad package tended to have no ad breaks and looser content rules.

[thaumasiotes]

What are some shows that were made for non-premium cable?

[dragonwriter]

Just a few examples:

Deadliest Catch (Discovery Channel, 2005-)

Monk (USA Network. 2002-2009)

Mad Men (AMC, 2007-2015)

The Shield (FX, 2002-2008)

Beavis and Butt-Head (MTV, 1993-1997 & 2011)