If I could believe that "we have an ending planned" means "we have written the entire thing in advance" then this would be reassuring, but with mystery box shows too often it seems to mean that they just have a very general idea of the premise of the show (including the ending). Like they're not completely making it up as they go along, but actually they kinda are because all the points between A and Z are being written between seasons.

The problem with that is that they overcook some of the points between A and Z because they need to have stories and hooks for each season within the broader story structure. You end up with things that feel very important to viewers because they were so prominent within a season, but are not actually considered important by the writers because they wrote these bits as sort of padding around the basic premise. There's this disconnect there between the writers and their audience that I think is a big reason why these types of shows often have unsatisfying endings filled with plot holes and unanswered questions.

[–] justaman123@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Yeah, I think the only show that really nailed this was Fringe