Television shows used to have the decency to show up on time.
I don’t mean immediately, of course. Nobody is asking prestige television to work like a microwave dinner. Great shows take time. Scripts need to be written, actors need to be available, sets need to be built, directors need to stare meaningfully into middle distance while deciding whether a corridor should be blue. Art takes time.
Yet the term “appointment viewing” cuts both ways, and shows today have developed the alarming habit of ghosting their audiences. The average gap between seasons of scripted streaming original shows has almost doubled—according to Ampere Analysis—from 12 months in 2020 to 21 months in 2025. That’s just the average. The great shows make us wait even longer, as if punishing us for falling for them.
Consider Severance, which gave us one of the great seasons of television, then made us wait nearly three years for the second season. Pluribus, with its spectacular first-season, built a world and gave us new questions to mull over, but now will likely only return to us in 2028, at the very least. This year’s smash hit Widow’s Bay, meanwhile, has been renewed for a second season, but with filming expected only in 2027 and no release date announced. Those are all Apple TV shows, but things aren’t different elsewhere. Amazon’s most popular Indian series, The Family Man, had a four-year gap between season 2 and season 3.
Honestly, this feels rude. For the viewer, the gap between seasons isn’t merely an inconvenience. It is a memory problem. A relationship problem. Sometimes, frankly, a who-the-hell-was-that problem.
The plain fact is that TV used to run on time. The Sopranos ran six seasons between 1999 and 2007. The Wire delivered five seasons between 2002 and 2008. Mad Men gave us seven seasons between 2007 and 2015. Better Call Saul produced six seasons between 2015 and 2022. These were some of the greatest shows of all time. They were extraordinarily complicated productions, populated by sprawling ensembles, elaborate worlds, highly ambitious writing and showrunners who cared about the precise emotional temperature of a close-up. Yet, they kept returning. They built momentum rather than, repeatedly, having to reconstruct it.
Today’s streaming ecosystem, it appears, needs that momentum. While streamers continue to commission increasingly expensive new shows, viewers are spending most of their time watching older ones. Nielsen’s 2025 viewing figures, released in January this year, showed that Americans were watching more TV—19% more than the year before—but the big-hitters included Grey’s Anatomy, a show that started in 2005. Other hits include The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, Seinfeld and Criminal Minds.
These are not shows viewers are dutifully revisiting out of nostalgia or curiosity. They are instead scratching the all-important itch that television shows—and the worlds they provide—will be there when we need them most. Old television has become comfort food in the streaming age. It is dependable, and it is there. You don’t have to remember what happened three years ago because the show is sitting there waiting for you.
The retention problem is hard to ignore. Almost every major returning show on Netflix last year lost viewers compared to its previous season. Bloomberg data showed second-season declines of between 30% and 70% for several Netflix hits, including One Piece, The Night Agent, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Beef.
Of course, correlation isn’t causation. Some shows simply lose viewers because their second seasons are just not as good—especially when creators are forced to create second seasons when the story may not need it, as in the case of Squid Game. Sometimes the problem is the show, not the wait. Sure, but… the wait can’t possibly help.
Some shows are different. Fleabag could disappear for years because its first season worked as a complete experience. When Phoebe Waller-Bridge eventually returned, season 2 wasn’t simply the delayed second half of season 1. It was another, richer chapter. Similarly, Curb Your Enthusiasm could take enormous stretches off because each season had the structural freedom of a series finale. Larry David could vanish and return without asking us to remember precisely why Ted Danson was annoyed with him three years earlier. Curb’s season gaps were part of its nature, not a tax on its storytelling.
Mystery-box dramas are the opposite. They end by opening doors. When Pluribus or Widow’s Bay leaves a viewer with some enormous revelation, it does so with the promise of eventual resolution. Trust us, the show says, we’ve got this covered.
That isn’t always the case. Look at Lost, for instance, the TV classic that revitalised mystery-box storytelling for modern audiences. The show made up its logic while asking more and more questions. The audience kept trusting that the answers were coming, that the writers knew where the labyrinth led. The eventual destination left many viewers wondering whether they spent too long admiring the architecture of a maze whose architect was still looking for the exit.
Look, the next Severance will probably be great. Pluribus may prove that Vince Gilligan only gets better with each story, each season. I’m hoping Widow’s Bay will give us a second season so ingenious that we forgive every year of waiting.
There is, however, a question storytellers of serialised entertainment ought to wonder about before demanding another three years. Will the audience still be waiting?
Television, after all, isn’t merely about telling a story well. It is about maintaining a relationship with an audience. And relationships, even very good ones, can go cold. Sometimes the person you’d been desperately waiting to hear from finally texts back. And by then you’ve changed your number.
Raja Sen is a critic, screenwriter and columnist. His first play, a murder mystery called The Simla Affair, recently opened in Delhi. He is currently writing a horror film.
Streaming tip of the week:
Looking for a great series that arrived on time, year after year? One of the most satisfying ones is House, starring Hugh Laurie. All 8 seasons of the show starring the British actor as a cantankerous American doctor are streaming now on Netflix.