Television

Sure, but the quality was wildly different back then.

As an example I've been rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation (like a typical Lemmy user) and then reading on the Star Trek Memory Alpha wiki about the behind the scenes for each episode. First off, with 25 or so episode seasons, you get some episodes that just aren't as good. When you then go and read the behind the scenes you realize the script has a last minute rewrite or an acknowledgement that the A plot was weak, but the B plot really told a nice story. Or my favorite, from everyone's favorite episode featuring Picard and his flute, the writers reflect and go "Oh wow, that probably dramatically changes who Picard is as a person" but next episode is just a regular episode, all well.

Now I say all that because let's look at Daredevil: Born Again. I saw a post over on Reddit that listed all the episodes IMDB ratings (prior to the finale). Guess which episode scored the lowest? An episode where Daredevil foils a bank robbery. It was largely a standalone episode. It's a good episode. But because it wasn't focused on the deep narrative it lost points in the ratings.

Let me talk about another show, High Potential. In short it's a police procedural, so every episode is about solving the case. It's a fine show, if it gets cancelled I won't be surprised, but if not I'll probably watch season two. Anyway at the end of the first episode our main character is talking to the police and says, "I need to investigate my backstory, I have to know what happened to my husband." And honestly, I want to know too. That's an interesting story. Except, we don't have time for that now. So the rest of the season just goes on until the season finale. Now, in the season finale we get... a reminder that this backstory exists and a tiny nugget of information. Tune in for season two. That's just how some shows are written. We got more episodes, but we gotta stretch things out.

When it comes to superheroes, if you want 20+ episodes, The CW has plenty for you to choose from. You can make a superhero show on a lower budget with more episodes. Those shows aren't bad, but they are different.

So yes. I wish seasons were 20+ episodes. But really what I want is quality. Daredevil: Born Again season 1 has some of that quality I wanted. It starts strong and it ends strong. The middle needs some work. Luckily they already figured that out, that's why season 1 got a makeover and why I'm excited for season 2.

I remember a five month gap between 26 episode seasons. Usually a good time to catch reruns of the episodes you missed.

Unless you're talking about kids cartoons, in which you'd have 50-200 episode seasons that aired twice a week year round.