The 'quiet episode' rule is killing modern bingewatching

I flew to Austin last weekend and watched 3 shows on the plane, one of them a new drama everyone keeps pushing. Every episode had a mandatory 20 minute quiet scene with no talking, just staring at a window or some long shot of a hallway. It felt like filler, not art. Why do writers think silence equals depth? Has anyone else noticed this pattern ruining otherwise solid shows?

1 comments

1 Comment

amy15414d ago

...and here's my question though, are these quiet scenes actually telling you something about the character, or are they just padding the runtime? Because I've seen shows where a minute of someone just breathing says more than ten pages of dialogue ever could. But I've also seen way too many shows where it's clearly just the writers not knowing how to move the plot forward, so they throw in a long shot of a hallway to seem deep. The difference is pretty obvious when you pay attention. So is the show you watched actually earning those moments, or are you just calling out lazy storytelling? Because I'm genuinely curious if we're talking about the same kind of fake-deep filler or if you just don't vibe with slow burns at all.