I mean, this is entirely untrue. There’s a bit in the first episode of the renewed 4th season of Family Guy joking about it. This was 20 years ago. FOX had already stumbled on the “people are more excited about the first season of a show” formula that Netflix wouldn’t adopt for another decade.
And that’s not even considering the graveyard of television in the 80s and 90s. Shows nobody even knew about until they’d been cancelled (American Gothic, the Original Battlestar Galactica, Freaks and Geeks) or shows that flared out from the enormous budget (Alf, Dinosaurs) too soon, but developed cult following after they were gone.
I mean, this is entirely untrue. There’s a bit in the first episode of the renewed 4th season of Family Guy joking about it. This was 20 years ago. FOX had already stumbled on the “people are more excited about the first season of a show” formula that Netflix wouldn’t adopt for another decade.
And that’s not even considering the graveyard of television in the 80s and 90s. Shows nobody even knew about until they’d been cancelled (American Gothic, the Original Battlestar Galactica, Freaks and Geeks) or shows that flared out from the enormous budget (Alf, Dinosaurs) too soon, but developed cult following after they were gone.