Chill, it's just simmer time

Your favourite show isn't dragging its feet. It's sneakily getting you more involved. Slow-burn storytelling is how streaming shows now unfold. Lean in

- Urvee Modwel

Once upon a time, we would come home from school, switch on the TV, watch an episode of our favourite show, discuss every detail on a three-way call with our besties, and lament that we had to wait another week to find out what happened next.

Now, 10 episodes of a show drop at once, and we devour them all at once too; chomp, chomp, pausing only for snack and bathroom breaks. But 10 episodes rarely deliver 10 times the action. Now, on the group chat with our besties, we complain that we wanted more to happen.

It's not you. TV shows are now slower. What started off as scene-setting (The Sopranos, 1999 2007) and world-building (Mad Men 2007 - 2015; Breaking Bad (2008 - 2013) is now a drawn-out style that geeks like to call slow-burn storytelling. At its best, it allows a show to focus on characters and a complicated plot, getting viewers more deeply invested, building fandoms and loyalties. At its worst, it seems like a school play.