Asklemmy

Love a great movie, but the hardest itch is best scratched with a mini series. By that I mean a series that is a finished story in one season. Sometimes they add another season, but it's almost never as good as the stand alone first season.

It's the perfect medium I think. Long enough to tell a full story and not leave too many details out (like in movies) but also to the point and finite, not like a series where you're already watching season 8 because you feel like you have to, just to see the ending of a story that might never come.

Examples are: Band of brothers, Chernobyl

TL;DR: Mini series is the best of both worlds IMHO.

What I hate most about a lot of series is that they come up with a good beginning and a decent middle, but no end. And so if it gets popular enough they just try to coast on the decent midddle indefinitely until loyal viewers get bored and the writing becomes monotonous, millking the life out of it. So many good shows devolve into this that it's hard for me to want to invest my time into any new series.

I think mini-series is the better format where they have a defined beginning, middle, end from the start. This is essentially thd packaged format of a movie, just longer.

I'm a movie guy, but it doesn't really come down to quality for me. I've watched many shows that match or exceed the quality of even the very best movies. I just prefer the package of a movie; being able to sit down and get the complete experience in one afternoon as opposed to the days/weeks/months or even years long commitment of watching a show. Don't get me wrong, I love TV, I just prefer the ease and comfort that a movie can give me.

We used to watch movies but now usually choose series. I don't know why i can watch 3 one-hour episodes, but a two-hour movie feels like too much commitment.

I prefer TV series as a medium; I have trouble sitting through a whole movie, and I think the way series have 'chapters' like a book is really helpful for a lot of stories. There's also just a lot more detail you can put in a long show.

All that being said, I'm so sick of series that don't go anywhere, or get cancelled prematurely. Other than miniseries like Queen's Gambit it seems like so many just sort of wander off into mediocrity after some seasons. Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Outer Range (soon)... Now I wait for series to end before picking them up, at least in the case of plot-heavy shows like those. There's less of an issue for comedies and other types of shows where the story isn't the main draw, so that's the sort of TV I end up watching the most.

If it's actually telling a story, I prefer a series. However, most shows have no end in mind. They don't exist to tell a full-fledged story, but rather to keep you watching. Those that do tell a story, though (with a true conclusion to the story)? Those are great.

Otherwise, give me a movie over a never-ending show.

I find the opposite. Good TV series tend to have much, much higher quality story telling than even good movies, mostly because a movie is the length of a short story.

In theory I can enjoy either one pretty much equally.

In practice I feel like I tend to enjoy movies more these days, since for the most part they're actually made with an ending in mind. A lot of TV series tend to either get cancelled inconclusively or just keep stretching on aimlessly forever as long as the studio thinks it'll make money.

I enjoy both, but I prefer a good series over a good movie. The much longer form of a series enables more complex stories and greater levels of nuance.

TV series come with more risks and more bad default behaviors than movies. They can always be cancelled in mid-story. Some are forced to tell a story-of-the-week at the expense of the overall story. And there are always producers who want to stretch a series as far as it will go, long after the material has been exhausted.

Despite the potential risks, a series with a coherent long-form story to tell can do things a movie just cannot do. It is possible to tell a story across multiple movies, but doing that amplifies all the risks of a series. If the second movie of your five-part story isn't a hit there will never be another. Movies almost always have to tell a self-contained story, even if they are part of something larger. And if the last planned movie does get made, and is successful, there WILL be more sequels to cash in on the property.

It's worth noting that movies can never replicate a typical novel because the difference in volume of material is far too great. A movie roughly corresponds to a novella. There are plenty of brilliant novellas and plenty of brilliant movies, but at the end of the day I prefer a novel or a series of novels.

TV series all the way. The shorter the episodes, the longer i can keep watching. I have a hard time justifying spending an hour to watch one episode of a show but i can sit still for 6+ hours watching 10 minute cartoon episodes.

I really only watch movies at the threather and only when i already know I'll like the movie

I love both, and used to consider myself a major film buff. Now I have a young daughter and the only time I can watch what I want is usually when she’s asleep. So now it’s mostly tv shows, but I do still try to go see movies or watch movies at home from time to time. The kid is also getting old enough to start watching movies (sort of anyways) so I do enjoy showing her movies that were a big part of my own childhood.

Depends on the story being told. Some stories are perfectly encapsulated in 90 minutes, some need 90 episodes.

That said, I find shows have both a lower initial commitment and a higher potential payoff, so I don't watch many movies.

Anime.