Comment by 0xcde4c3db
12 days ago
I think one component of it is the devaluing of writing in the industry. A big issue in the most recent WGA strike (mostly glossed over in favor of obsessing over the AI stuff) was studios pushing really hard to turn writing into one-off gig work instead of a stable position. A lot of successful shows have a first season that is lackluster or just plain "off" because they hadn't figured out what the show was actually about, and I suspect that excessive commoditization of the writing process is a recipe for producing that "weird first season" every season.
Devaluating writers probably hurts, but you see the "weird first season" even in older shows. The 1960s series Get Smart and Dick Van Dyke Show had first seasons that were much weaker than what the show would become, to cite a couple of examples. There probably is no substitute for a period of getting your sea legs under you as a writer.
What I'm saying is that I suspect writers need to be attached to a specific show for a while for that seasoning/maturity/"sea legs" process to happen for the show. I don't think it works if there's just a procession of people who only write one or two episodes and then move on to other shows.
To be fair, there is the odd exception where one writer just single-handedly cranks out the scripts (e.g. Joe Straczynski writing all of season 3 of Babylon 5), but that's the exception for a reason.