Why Severance Season 2 release date is three years after its debut

Remember Stranger Things? No, seriously – do you actually remember the last season of one of Netflix’s biggest series? Or, for that matter, what happened in HBO’s final seasons euphoria or Apple TV+’s Severance pay? The last time any of these three series premiered new episodes was in the first half of 2022, when Joe Biden had been president for barely a year and Nate Silver was nominating Eric Adams as a future presidential candidate. At this point, we’re in a decade of television’s streaming era: The gap between shows’ seasons can now sometimes be measured in presidential terms.

This isn’t normal – or at least it wasn’t before. Back when broadcast networks ruled the world, it rarely took more than four or five months for us to catch up on our favorite shows. (ABCs Abbott Elementary School, For example, the third season ended in May and the fourth season began last night.) But the streamers are now in control, and, among other things, they have upset the idea that successful TV shows should produce new episodes in a timely manner. Covid delays and the Hollywood strikes last summer temporarily worsened the situation, but even without them, the process of producing and distributing television shows has become so expensive and complicated that two-year waits for new episodes and an 18-month hiatus are no longer uncommon have become common between seasons.

And while a popular franchise like Stranger Things or Bridgerton I can probably afford to keep the fans waiting because at most shows the audience is very bothered by the gap. “Audiences become attached to a show, and if they stay away from it for too long, it’s easy to fall out of love and forget what attracted them to the show in the first place,” says the veteran HE And The West Wing Producer John Wells. “Don’t have it [new episodes] The long availability of shows is one of the reasons shows decline rather than build an audience – even shows that achieve great success in their first year.” A program director for a major streamer agrees, arguing that “familiarity” drives television away from the audience Movie experience differs. “You go to the movies for two hours, but you watch a show in your own home week after week, year after year,” he says. “You build a familiarity with the characters, so getting into a pattern is very helpful. It is always better to resume shows as soon as possible from season to season. Regularity keeps people coming back.”

So if having less time between seasons is such a good thing, why have so many hit shows recently failed to produce new episodes on time at all? Insiders point to three big factors behind “The Big Wait”:

House of the Dragon.
Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

After game of Thrones and then Stranger Things After showing the ratings potential of cinematic television, all platforms rushed to develop more blockbuster-level programming – think so House of the Dragon, The Boys, Peacemaker. “The shows have gotten bigger and special effects are complicated and take a long time,” explains a streaming executive. A good example of how expectations for “event” TV have changed relatively quickly: Disney’s Marvel Universe shows. The series that the studio made for ABC (Agents of SHIELD) and Netflix (Jessica Jones, daredevil) produced dozens of episodes and several seasons within a few years. But in the Disney+ era, both Marvel and Star Wars series have felt like drawn-out films that may or may not get sequels years after their initial release. The outsized ambition of these tentpole projects – even a period costume drama Bridgerton – means that it’s “physically impossible to film a new season every year, given what needs to be filmed.” It’s like demanding a movie and then a sequel within two years. It can happen, but it’s pretty hard.”

Poker face.
Photo: Phillip Carus/Peacock

The line between film and TV talent has completely disappeared during the streaming wars: platforms regularly recruit big names to bring attention to projects, while the near-collapse of the mid-budget theatrical film business has forced less famous film veterans to find work search on television. “The once huge middle part of the film business has disappeared, and many producers, directors and writers who worked in that area have migrated to television,” explains a veteran 35mm film writer. “But they came from a different system where things took longer to make, and they brought that approach to television.”

So it might be nice to have Ben Stiller there Severance pay or Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne carefully crafting poker face, These feature veterans simply aren’t trained to make episodic television contemporary. “Making eight hours of television is not the same as making a two-hour film,” says the streaming executive cautiously. Typically, he notes, film types are “not as nimble at writing” and there is “sometimes confusion about who is responsible, the writer or the director.” All of this can slow down production and the gaps between seasons enlarge.

But even if the talent is native to TV, the collapse of the broadcast ecosystem has left “an entire generation of TV writers untrained for 22 episodes,” the executive says. “It should be easy to do eight or ten episodes of a half-hour show, but they just don’t have that power. They have no experience writing quickly and a lot.” Blame it on the streaming execs: They could have found a way to keep this kind of episodic TV factory running, but instead chose to push Netflix off the cliff Short-season TV because they believed audiences would rather watch a sexy new show every few weeks than build long-term relationships with a few really good series.

Squid game.
Photo: Noh Juhan/Netflix/Everett Collection

When John Wells released weekly episodes HE And The West Wing For NBC, he said there would be four to five weeks between the end of filming on an episode and its broadcast. But with streaming, “it can take seven or eight months, even up to a year to get started.” Because in addition to the increased time required for complicated special effects in many shows, today’s global platforms “take up to 120 days to get it to the different areas of application,” says Wells, referring to dubbing and subtitles.

As soon as a new season of a show finally premieres, streamers often decide at their leisure whether it makes sense to order another season. “Tech companies wait 30, 60, 90 days after a binge drop to get performance data,” says a former streaming development executive. While it’s just as important how many people watched, according to this executive, “specific metrics include: episode and full-season completion rates, did it attract new subscribers, did it attract high-income viewers.” These numbers are then measured against the show’s overall production budget, and only then will streaming suits be able to “start doing data gymnastics to justify ordering another season.” Making matters worse, streamers don’t have primetime schedules and time slots that need to be filled by a certain date like linear networks do. “With no industry-wide tipping points, these renewal decisions can take as much time as contracts allow,” says the former streaming executive.

Euphoria.
Photo: Eddy Chen/HBO Max

After a decade of increasing gaps between TV seasons, there are signs that the tide may soon be turning. The success of linear favorites like Suits And Prison break has led to a new appreciation for “network”-style shows that can be produced more quickly, while the post-peak TV era has ushered in a new age of budgetary discipline. “I think there are services that are trying to get these shows back on a more regular basis, especially those that don’t just drop all the shows at once for fun,” Wells says.

He should know: The veteran producer is currently overseeing a medical procedure for Max The Pitt which will release 15 weekly episodes in 2025 and, if renewed, has the potential to release a second batch of episodes within a year. “Our intention is to make a high quality show that would have been made by one of the major networks years ago, but streaming,” explains Wells. “And we hope to do this every year so audiences can connect with these characters and be excited when we come back.”

Netflix now has another experienced TV employee – Carlton Cuse (Lost, Jack Ryan) – is currently working on a medical drama titled pulse. While Netflix has given no indication that it plans to produce more than the usual 8 or 10 episodes per season, the procedural nature of the series and its patronage means that in the event of a renewal pulse will likely join Netflix shows e.g The diplomat And The Lincoln Lawyer when new seasons are introduced annually. And while the trend is still relatively new, Wells welcomes any shift in sentiment toward more regular serialized television. “We are all very capable of maintaining a rolling schedule. This has been on television for 70 years,” says the producer. “We just have to get used to it again, and I think the audience will reward it if we do.”