Entertainment
Best Show Of The Decade Suffering From The System That’s Killing TV
By TeeJay Small
| Published
It’s impossible to deny the impact that streaming services have had on television and film. Beyond simply offering these creations for our viewing pleasure, streaming has changed the way that productions themselves take shape. These days, you’re likely to get eight episodes of a prestige television series once every three years, rather than a 22+ episode season every autumn. While these long gaps can support massive budgets, big name stars, and more intentional writing, they make it difficult to keep up with storylines and develop memorable characters.
We’ve seen this trend negatively impact productions such as Stranger Things, which saw its core cast of lovable young kids sprout into full-blown adults over the course of five seasons. Now, according to a recent write-up from Polygon, it looks like Apple TV’s greatest new series is set to receive the same unfortunate fate. The show in question, Pluribus, likely won’t return for a second season until late 2027, at the earliest.
We’re Not Getting Any Younger
For those not in the know, Pluribus is the latest project from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan. The Apple TV original concluded its inaugural nine-episode season in December of 2025, ending with a high-stakes cliffhanger. The series was originally greenlit in September 2022 with a two-season order, prompting many fans to assume that the second season would follow a tight production schedule.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case, as Vince Gilligan has confirmed that the team behind Pluribus has only just begun mapping out the next batch of episodes. While discussing his process with Polygon, Gilligan stated “We are breaking the season. It is not going quite as fast as I would hope, but we’re hoping there’s lots more excitement and twists and turns. And I think we got some dramatic stuff coming up in season 2.”
Later in that same discussion, Gilligan acknowledged the elongated production schedule, joking “we’re looking forward to people seeing it in eight or nine years when we get Season 2 finished.” Luckily, Pluribus doesn’t feature a core cast of young children, so the ticking clock may not be a complete show-killer. Still, it’s disheartening to binge through nine hours of incredible narrative, only to find out you’ll have to wait for two or more years to receive a conclusion.
Great Art Takes Time
Marvel was able to put out Infinity War and Endgame in the span of a year. Parks and Recreation reliably churned out 125 episodes in six years. Now, fans are forced to wait half a presidential term to catch eight new episodes of a show that doesn’t even need a massive special effects budget. With all due respect to the team behind Pluribus, this cheapens the material. Once the episodes arrive, every single moment that doesn’t immediately progress the plot feels like a waste of time.
To give an example of exactly how this trend is killing TV shows, let’s look at Pluribus‘ first season. Episode 7 “The Gap” is one of the most visually stunning journeys ever committed to the small screen. In the episode, a fan-favorite character makes a perilous trek across unknown territory, as the camera lingers and highlights some spectacular scenery. It’s the kind of thing you might see in a nature documentary, or a feature film about the dangers of global warming and the beauty of the untraveled planet.
I’d like to be able to fully enjoy scenes like these. Unfortunately, I was acutely aware of the fact that there were only two more episodes after the journey, and that I’d likely have to wait a very long time to get a real conclusion. As a result, the travel montage made me antsy and left me wondering how the season would wrap up in a satisfying way. In the old days, I’d be able to enjoy multiple filler episodes, bottle episodes, and one-off adventures that contribute little or nothing to the overall plot, because I could remain confident that there would be enough material to keep me hooked for weeks.
Trading Slop For Art
Vince Gilligan himself is no stranger to these tight production timelines. Breaking Bad managed to reliably deliver 13 hour-long episodes each year, culminating in 62 episodes over five seasons. Better Call Saul had a similar trajectory, despite airing through a global pandemic and taking a production break after lead actor Bob Odenkirk suffered a near-fatal heart attack on set. I understand that a sci-fi epic like Pluribus can contain a lot of moving parts, but surely the team behind the show is capable of delivering a batch of episodes under significantly less tumultuous conditions.
The good news is, Pluribus is very, very good. I’ll still be thinking about the show and open to rewatching it when the new episodes do finally filter through. The point is, this trend of taking multiple years to deliver brief seasons is killing TV, because most other shows simply don’t provide the same value. If you’re not Vince Gilligan, you probably shouldn’t get comfortable joking about this sort of thing, because it might leave your show dead in the water.