With all the new shows coming out on Netflix soon, I figured I would sit down and really deliberate on whether Netflix’s new releasing pattern is as good as they say it is. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, they have started using a Split-Release Method. This means that they will release half the season, and a month or two later, the rest of the season.

This feels like a step down from the original idea behind streaming services—a place where you can get a full season, uninterrupted, and binge it in one night. Yet, that is slowly no longer becoming our reality. Now we have streaming services going back to the hype of weekly episodic releases through shows like WandaVision, Loki, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and the numerous shows on Hulu that do this. However, Netflix has—up until this past year—given us full seasons for their drops. But they are braving these new waters with several TV shows being their guinea pigs.

How has this been going?

Well, they started this idea with their highly anticipated and popular TV show Stranger Things, which received great reviews even with this new change in releasing format. One could even say this made the storyline and character development even better. Yet, Wednesday’s Split-Release was met with negative reviews. Granted, these reviews could simply be due to the show itself rather than the releasing method. However, if you’ve read my blog post “Woe is Wednesday … Season 2” you’ll know how I feel about the subject matter.

Forcing the writers to anticipate and write around the idea that there has to be a cliffhanger for a specific episode so the viewers are left wanting and itching for the second half of the season can cause anxiety and rushing of a script. As I noted in my Wednesday post, this sometimes makes the viewers feel like they were only given a partial script. It has even been mentioned by James Gunn in The Hollywood Reporter that many movies are failing because the production team is being given unfinished scripts.

Could this be what’s now happening in TV production?

Apparently, production dates to start filming are being set before a script has even been started. On top of this, if the writers are being pressured to ensure there are cliffhangers for the Split-Release, then how will they make a decent script that will captivate their audience?

As this begins to unfold, I hope Netflix listens to its viewers, and other streaming services take note of the negative reviews being given about this releasing method. I would hate for streaming services to revert back to every show being a weekly episodic release with no “without ads” option. It would be a complete undoing of what made these services so appealing to their audiences.