British drama series are better than USA ones (for the most part)

Before anyone gets all nationalistic on this I want you to hear me out. I'm not talking about all series but more specifically about dramas. The case in point for me is Sherlock, which was aired on BBC.

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First off, this series is absolutely outstanding and is probably a big part of the reason why Benedict Cumberbatch was able to become the A-list star that he is today. The episodes are masterfully done and you can see how this series was influenced by the really awesome Sherlock original film that happened in 2009.

The reason why I am saying that this and other British drama series are superior to USA ones is because of the fact that they don't seem to be attached to a strict deadline as far as episode release is concerned. I have seen many series in the USA that were ruined by the studios being dedicated to a certain number of episodes that had to be released every year, even if they don't actually have a story. This results in what could have been a great series going downhill fast, or failing to ever capture an audience in the first place because they have 4 episodes worth of material that has to be spread out over 12 episodes or something like that.

Sherlock on BBC did nothing of the sort. They released new episodes when they felt like it, or so it appears.

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They would take 2 years break between releasing a mere 3 episodes and because of this lack of studio pressure (or so it would appear) they end up with a quality product. Also, they don't continue the series when they don't have any material. I presume this is because Cumberpatch and Martin Freeman moved on to other things like films but I would imagine that if this was a USA series, they simply would have created a new Sherlock and a new Watson to milk the audience for all it is worth before the series fades into obscurity.

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LOST sticks out in my mind as far as this "we WILL release episodes every year!" mantra is concerned. This show was absolutely amazing in the first couple of years but then, I would say about mid way through season 3 the episodes just went in so many different directions that none of it made sense anymore. The number of people that watched it diminished as a consequence and even though seasons 5 and 6 had almost nothing to do with the original story, they kept making them and more and more people decided to not tune in. When they did the grand series finale, people were left so confused that it just made fans mad. I still don't have any idea what that was all about.

Let's look at another series, but this time one that is out of Britain. Black Mirror in my mind is one of the greatest TV shows ever made and once again, they didn't seem to be focused so much on getting a certain number of episodes out every year.

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Sometimes there would be a year between releases, sometimes 2 years. Some seasons had 3 episodes, some had 6, some had 1. However, every single episode of the show is damn near perfect IMO, even though one episode is not connected to any of the other episodes. Sadly, they haven't made anything since 2019 and there isn't any definitive information out there about if they even intend to do so. I'm sure that at least in part this is due to Covid.

I feel as though this show would have been ruined if it had been on network TV in USA because studios executives would have demanded that new episodes be made, even if these episodes were not of the same caliber as previous seasons.

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The Punisher was one of the biggest series letdowns of all time in my book because it was one of my favorite comic books as a kid. Some of the films are ok as well. However, they decided that each season HAD TO BE 13 episodes long which would have been fine if they actually had 13 episodes worth of material. If you are one of the few people out there that bothered to watch this series, you already know that they definitely did not have 13 episodes worth of material.

The end result was that each episode was 70% filler and this is supposed to be an action series. It had very little in the way of action and should have been called The Punishing Dialogue-er .

Netflix ended up cancelling this after 2 seasons and I don't think there is really anyone out there that is disappointed by this.

So I am not necessarily America-bashing here but I do feel as though in the United States that producers and studio executives push to make as much of something in as short amount of time as possible and there are very few exceptions that I can think of.

If you have any series that you can think of that were based out of USA that did a limited release but only when the product was truly ready I'd love to hear about it. I'm not saying that I am right but in my mind I can't think of any dramas other than Breaking Bad where creators of a US-based show didn't just continue to crank out episodes until the public lost interest.